


Haunted

by erebones



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Consensual Possession, Ghost Sex, Haunting, Implied/Referenced Torture, Inquisitor Carver Hawke, M/M, Mage Rights, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-07-29 20:47:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7698859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erebones/pseuds/erebones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carver Hawke, improbable leader of the Inquisition, is being haunted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the visitation

**Author's Note:**

> Starting off with a few prompts I filled a while ago, then building off of that into a proper fic.

Carver is not unfamiliar with spirits. He grew up with a mage father and two mage siblings; magic and the Fade are not strange to him. But then, he can’t say he’s ever been dogged by a very persistent spirit before, benign or otherwise, so he must admit this is a new experience.

He sits up in bed when he feels it, the familiar tinge of coldness in the room. When he’d first felt it on the trek through the mountains, he’d mistaken it for the pervasive Frostback chill, or an aftereffect of Corypheus’ tampering with his mark. Now he knows better. He squints against the dark—it’s a cloudy night, and the moonlight filtering through the enormous glass windows in his chambers at Skyhold is murky at best—and yes, there it is. A slight dimple of silver near his desk.

“You’re here,” he says, perhaps a little stupidly. To be fair, he’s not sure how much the spirit understands. Or ghost, he supposes. He hasn’t told anyone about it, not even Bethany. He wasn’t exactly expecting the spirit to hang around this long. Maybe he should tell Solas about it. _Then again, maybe not_ , he adds to himself, thinking sourly of the prickly apostate. Nothing he says ever seems to penetrate that hide-tough exterior, and he’s just about given up trying to get in the elf’s good graces. “I wasn’t sure you’d stick around this long. It’s a long way from Haven.”

The silver shadow flickers and hardens—or solidifies? He’s not sure of the proper terminology. Carver can make out the fall of fabric, a loose shirt tucked into close-fitting trousers, a shorn head and the bump of a snub nose. He’s being ignored. With a sigh he reaches for the matches in his bedside table and finds his slippers with his feet.

Candle lit, he goes over to perch on the desk. The apparition appears to be leafing through some of his paperwork—one of the many forms he has to complete for improvements to their dilapidated fortress. Carver sets the candle on the desk and folds his arms against the cold, wishing he’d put a dressing gown on over his nightshirt.

“Can you hold a quill? Would be awfully useful. You forge my signature, I get to sleep for more than three hours a night.”

The spirit looks askance at him as if to say _I don’t think so._ So much for that idea.

“You know there’s something really familiar about you,” Carver says into the echoing silence. “You getting better at this? You look a lot more… solid.”

The spirit looks back at the papers. Carver doesn’t see what’s so fascinating about them, but maybe there’s not much to read in the Fade.

“I know I’ve seen you before. I just wish I could remember where. Were you always dressed like that? You look like you’ve been through the war.”

It’s true, too. The spirit is barefoot and dressed in what might as well be rags: a simple shirt open at the throat and snug trousers that grow ragged and threadbare around the ankles. His hair is shaved close to his scalp and his face is patchy with stubble, eyes shadowed and dark—but maybe that’s just a ghost thing. If there’s any clue on his body to what he died of, Carver can’t see it. Unless he died of exhaustion. Carver thinks the ghost looks even more tired than he is, and he’s _dead_.

Abruptly, an icy draft of air sweeps across the room, although no windows are open—he double-checked everything before he went to bed. The papers on his desk scatter, and the candle gutters once and goes out. Cursing, Carver springs for the pages, carefully avoiding the silver-grey patch where his spirit stands. When he’s sure he’s collected them all, he returns to the desk and pauses. Perfectly aligned on the clear patch of desk where he was filling out signatures earlier is the requisition form for a mage tower. Carver had been waffling on the issue for a few days; although he’d gone to Therinfal Redoubt to recruit the Templars, or what remained of them, he had felt badly about what happened to the mages at Redcliffe and he’s been seeking some way to make reparations. This would be perfect, if Ser Barris and the Knight-Captain—that is, _Commander_ Cullen hadn’t been pressuring him to support the Templars with more visible infrastructure.

But it appears the decision has been made for him. At the bottom of the requisition form is his own signature, perfectly inscribed without even a droplet of wasted ink. He picks up the paper and touches the scrawling lines that look as if he wrote them himself, though he has no memory of doing so. They’re still a bit damp, and his finger comes away with spots of black.

A rush of cold tingles at the nape of his neck and he turns to see the apparition hovering right at his shoulder, staring at him. He waves the paper in the air between them, but it passes right through the man’s chest. “Is this some kind of sign? You want me to build a mage tower? Another Circle?”

The spirit’s nostrils flare. _Is he breathing? Can he even breathe?_ His pale, translucent face screws up as if in concentration. Carver holds his breath, waiting. The spirit opens his mouth—and no sound comes out. Both of them slump in tandem, disappointed.

“I guess it couldn’t be that easy, huh?” Carver says. “Was this difficult for you? Could you do it again?” He sets the paper down carefully, apart from the other jumbled mess he collected from the floor, and taps his forged signature.

The spirit looks at it, apparently apathetic. Useless.

“The Fade is fucking useless!” Carver exclaims aloud. It’s hard to tell, but it almost seems as if the spirit jumps, startled by his outburst. “What’s the point of haunting me if you can’t even communicate? Listen, I’m cold. I’m going back to bed. Let me know when you figure it out, okay?”

Grumpy, he stomps back to bed and envelops himself in the warm sheets. In spite of the odd events of the night, he falls almost immediately to sleep.

Morning, when it comes, is cold and grey and tastes like ash in the back of his throat. Carver groans at the bells chiming in the Chantry garden down below, rousing the members of the Inquisition for a new day’s work, and rolls over in bed. He freezes. Scattered all over his bed are the remaining papers he was supposed to have signed, requisition forms and preliminary treaties and all sorts of other things Josephine had told him about but that he hadn’t really understood. And they all say the same thing, repeated over and over again in an elegant, looping script that covers the backs and fronts without regard to margins or the words already written there. _Teach them._

_teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them teach them_

Carver presses his hands to his eyes and flops back onto the pillow. Josie is going to _kill_ him.


	2. rattle your chains

“It’s my decision as Inquisitor, and that’s final!”

Carver takes a deep breath and steps back from the War Table. On the other side of it, Josie stands with her mouth slightly agape, a gentler, more ladylike version of Cullen’s slack jaw. It gives Carver some measure of satisfaction to see him so shocked. _Bet you didn’t ever think you’d see your precious protégé talking back, eh Knight-Captain_? He gains control of himself and sketches a quick bow. “If you’ll excuse me, Commander. Lady Montilyet, Lady Nightingale.”

The breeze blowing in through the collapsed wall just outside the War Room bites into his cheeks, clarifying his thoughts. He shouldn’t have lost his temper. He had known it would be difficult to convince Cullen to accept a mage tower within the confines of Skyhold—not a _Circle_ , he’d been careful to state, but a school, the terms of which he’d hammered out with Madame Vivienne—but a shouting match had not been a part of his plan.

Halfway to Josie’s office a wave of tiredness washes over him and he stops, leaning briefly against the wall and putting a hand to his head. _Maker, all I want is to sleep._ But sleep has been hard to come by these last few days. Between the nightmares from the mark and the lyrium withdrawal, not to mention the ghost prowling his chambers at night, hounding him with cold air and rustling sighs and brief, brilliant flares of light and color that he can’t quite bring himself to describe as _visions_ , he’s hardly slept at all in this last week. He’s hoping that this will be the end of it. _You see_ , he wants to tell his not-so-friendly spirit. _I’m trying._

“Inquisitor?”

He presses away from the wall and straightens up, suddenly pricklingly self-conscious. “Dorian. Er, hello. I didn’t see you there.”

“Clearly.” Dorian looks him up and down very briefly—not without a flicker of interest behind his grey eyes, but mostly out of concern. “You should sit down before you fall down. You look like you’re on the verge of collapse. Perhaps a wakefulness potion? Or a cup of coffee?”

“I’ll be all right,” he says, waving him aside. “Can I help you with something?”

“Vivienne informed me you were presenting your decision to build a mage tower to your advisors today. Am I to understand that I missed the, ah…”

“Shitshow? Yeah, you did. Sorry. But I’m sure Josie can give you a recap if you wanted.”

“No, that’s all right. I’m only sorry I came too late to offer my support. Shall I help you back to your rooms, Inquisitor? You really ought to lie down and rest.”

“Thank you, but I’ll manage. It’s not _that_ far of a walk.”

Dorian shrugs. “If you insist.” He stands aside to let him pass, and Carver presses on, trying not to lean too heavily against the wall until he’s out of sight.

It’s only late afternoon, half a bell away from suppertime, and Carver is suddenly looking forward to those precious thirty minutes of peace and quiet. He mounts the stairs to his chambers with his shoulders bowed from strain. He’s grateful to Leliana for sticking up for him, but the Commander is difficult to drown out when he gets going, and Josie had been torn between the two, clearly determined to keep a neutral face. Carver scowls and shuts the door behind him with a bang. And groans.

There’s a circle drawn on the wall in what looks suspiciously like blood, a slash drawn through it sloppily. A broken circle. He is _so_ not in the mood.

“I’ve done what you asked!” he calls. “They start construction tomorrow with what we have, and they’re sending out teams of Harding’s people to track down the rest of what we need.”

There’s no answer, but there’s blood on the stairs. He can’t remember if it was there before. Little half-moons—no, footprints, like someone was walking barefoot and tracking blood behind them. He hopes to the Maker it’s all in his head, because getting blood out of the flagstones is going to be a nightmare.

He mounts the steps with one hand against the wall, head pounding, and nearly jumps out of his skin. Standing at the top, near the double-doors leading onto the balcony, is a man dressed in rags. His eyes are sad and tired, and one of them is bruised, leading to a bloody smear across his cheek, like he had a bloody nose and tried (failed) to wipe it clean. He’s dressed in a thin white shirt—or it was white, at one time, but is now yellowed with sweat and grime and stained here and there with red—and dark trousers stamped with a diamond pattern, not unlike the motif that adorns Dorian’s belt buckles. His hands are held in front of him and shackled together, but the chain drops half a score of links and breaks off around his knees. His feet are bare and bloody.

Carver rubs his eyes with one hand. He’s never seen his spirit friend so clearly before. “Am I dreaming? Hallucinating? Maker, did Leliana put something in my tea?”

The apparition doesn’t answer—not in words. Instead, a chill fills the room, erasing whatever traces of warmth the morning’s fire has left behind. Carver shivers and takes a step back. The windows darken, clouds gathering over Skyhold in a sudden squall, and he can hear a creaking, like a rusty gate in the wind.

The chain. The chain is swinging back and forth, although the spirit stands perfectly still. Carver shudders. “What do you want? I’m doing what you asked, or I’m trying—there’s been some resistance, but I’ve set it in motion—fuck!”

He ducks, barely avoiding the piece of paper that barrels by. The next one he’s ready for, and he snatches it out of the air. It’s a copy of the mage tower requisition form, but his signature at the bottom is smeared with blood.

“Can we not do this?” Carver begs, as one of the doors slams open and the gale outside finds its way in. The wind tugs at his hair like fingers, pulling at his clothes and stinging his face and hands. He lifts his arm to protect himself and jerks back at the slice of bright, hot pain that stings his forearm, sharp as a whip. Sharp as the end of a broken-off chain.

Suddenly filled with rage, he lowers his arm and charges. He passes straight through the apparition, of course, but he gains some measure of satisfaction at the way it wobbles slightly, like it was surprised by his initiative. “Come on then!” he roars, turning back around with his knees half-cocked and his hands curled into ready fists. “Fight me! Fight me, if that’s what you want, I’m _tired_ of this!”

The apparition stares at him as if taken aback. The chain still swings, but slowly, and the wind begins to die. Carver sags and stumbles to his knees. He puts his head in his hands.

“Please. I’m trying. I’m… _trying_.”

The room is finally quiet. Carver looks up through squinting eyes, afraid of what he’ll find, but the blood on the floor and the wall is gone and the doors are all closed. Sunlight streams gently through the windows, splashing multicolored patterns on the flagstone floor. And a few paces away, flickering like a dying candle, is his ghost.

“What do you want from me?” Carver whispers, sinking back on his heels. “What happened to you, that you want this so badly? Can’t you tell me?”

There is no audible answer, but the spirit hovers toward him, feet pacing but not quite touching the floor, and an echo of a memory prickles in his head like an itch he can’t quite scratch. _There are worse things than dying, Dorian_. Carver’s breath catches in his chest.

“Oh. It’s you.”


	3. the possession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dorian intervenes.

"Felix?" 

Carver holds his breath, hanging behind as Dorian steps into the Inquisitor's quarters. It looks spotless, no trace of blood or markings on the walls, no sound of chains swinging in the dark. But Carver can feel him here, lingering. Watching them from somewhere just beyond the Veil.  

Dorian turns and looks at him, and the ache in his face is hard to look at. Truth be told he'd hesitated even going to Dorian in the first place. What if Carver was wrong? What if it was all in his head, just his fucked-up memories and restless dreams playing with his psyche? Of course, that was probably already true to begin with. And Dorian was the only one he trusted to look into the matter, even if it did concern his childhood friend.  

"Do you feel him?" Carver asks quietly. He's never encountered the spirit— _Felix_ _,_ he reminds himself—when he was with another person. Always alone. But maybe, because it's Dorian... 

"I feel something, certainly. I am unsure whether it is a harmless spirit or something more... sinister." In spite of the doubt on his face, Dorian's voice is sure and steady, and it gives Carver a measure of confidence.  

"Should we try and... call him out?" 

"I will make the attempt. You stay there." He gestures, and a little ring of flickering green light surrounds him—a pentagram of protection, sealing him in with whatever spirit lurks inside the room. "If something happens to me... I will try and resist its charms, but you were a Templar once. You know what to do." 

Carver's heart seizes in his chest, but he moves by rote, taking his sword from its stand nearby and freeing it from its sheath. _Blessed are those that stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter..._  

Maker, it should be Cullen doing this. He was always unwavering in his duty, no matter the cost. Carver... he has struck down his share of abominations in his time, but by the end of his years in Kirkwall, and the end of his service to the Order, he had yet to feel a sense of pride or accomplishment in any of it. The very idea that he might need to do the same for Dorian, a faithful companion these last months and, dare he say, a friend… Well. It won’t come to that. It mustn’t.  

“All right then,” Dorian says, pitching his voice to carry throughout the room. He stands like a hunter poised to strike, knees loose and his hands hovering near his sides, the potential for power gathered in his palms. _A mage is fire made flesh and a demon asleep._ Carver works the saliva in his mouth but does not spit. Dorian is a human being, damn whatever the Chantry might have to say about it. “We know you’re there, spirit. Come forth. I bind thee to my will.” 

The words are old-fashioned, but they don’t sit clumsy in his mouth. Carver can feel the power in them, more subtle than his usual flair, prickling at the back of his neck. He shivers and lifts a hand to chafe his nape until the hairs lay flat again. In the circle of protection that Dorian has drawn, wide enough that four of him could stand abreast and still not break the diameter, the air seems to flicker and fade, like a humid wave of air on a hot day. At first it is formless, entirely transparent, but after a few moments it coalesces, forming an incandescent patch roughly the height and width of a man. There are no features Carver can make out, nothing so sophisticated as a face or clothing, but there’s definitely something there. Some _one_.  

“Identify yourself,” Dorian says, and his voice is like the crack of a whip in the stillness. Not sharp, necessarily, but startling, with the firm sort of tone that reminds Carver eerily of being scolded by his father as a boy.  

The spirit wavers, growing taut and more defined for just an instant before collapsing again into mere distortion.  

“He can’t speak,” Carver offers, then hastily corrects, “ _It_ can’t speak,” when Dorian shoots him a brief, anguished look. Like a pebble falling to the bottom of a lake, Dorian’s face ripples and grows smooth again, and he holds his hands palm-up, letting the force of his will coalesce there.  

“Perhaps not, but there are other ways to communicate. Can you show me a picture?” 

“Dorian…” 

“ _Don’t_ interrupt, Inquisitor,” Dorian snaps. “I need to concentrate.” 

Carver swallows back his protests and tries to relegate himself to silent watcher. It’s difficult. He has an inkling of what Dorian is trying to do—let a little bit of the spirit into his consciousness to paint a picture in his mind, reach in the way Cole does sometimes to find the dreams and nightmares of his fellows. But where Cole only looks from a distance—and where Cole is bound in mortal form, trapped from the full power of the Fade where once he walked unchecked—this spirit, or ghost, or whatever it is, will be putting something into Dorian’s head, leaving him incredibly vulnerable to possession.  

Carver’s palms are sweating on the hilt of his sword, but he dares not pause to wipe them dry on his trousers. The haze undulates, almost as if considering the offer—and when did Carver start to interpret little movements and quirks as actual, complex thought?—and then it steps forward and _subsumes_ Dorian.  

Dorian makes a taut, surprised noise and goes still, hands spread as if trying to catch his balance. The circle of protection flickers and goes out. All around him is that wavering, shimmering glow; it swirls around his feet and up like transparent smoke, like the heat rising off a clear-burning fire in the wilderness. Carver can _smell_ it, almost, piney and sharp, with an undercurrent of cloves and sickly-sweet lyrium, coppery with corruption.  

And then he moves—stiffly, like the legs and arms of a puppet controlled by strings. Carver readies his sword, mouth dry as dust, as Dorian turns to face him with his shoulders held at a strange, unfamiliar angle and his eyes burning with green fire.  

" _Why have you not done as I asked?_ " 

Maker save him, but he knows that voice. "Felix, let him go. I'm _trying_." 

" _What do you want with me?_ " the spirit asks, sharp and plaintive. Fearful. Though it takes a tremendous effort of will, Carver lowers his blade. " _Have I not given you enough already?_ " 

Carver licks his lips, drier than desert sand. "What do you mean?" 

" _I gave of my flesh and my bone, I gave my memories, I sold my very soul, but it was not enough. Please._ " The abomination staggers toward him, legs working like the rusty gears of some abandoned dwarven mechanism, and Carver wavers, every instinct telling him to flee. This close, he can see Dorian's face is not entirely his own—it blurs, softening and stretching, becoming something else and then snapping back again as Dorian fights for control of his own body. " _I just wanted to make them see._ " 

"See _what_?" Carver demands. "I don't have time for your riddles!" Another step, and he has no choice but to lift his sword. "Give him up, Felix. Get out. Give Dorian back to me." 

" _Dorian_?" The abomination stops, head cocked, and when it speaks green fire licks from the inside of its blurred mouth. " _Dorian is dead. They told me. And my father_ _._ _Gone._ "  

A flare of green energy and suddenly Carver is on his back on the floor, Dorian/Felix crouching over him with their fists tangled in his collar to drag him closer. Spittle flies from their mouth and Carver flinches back, one hand scrabbling desperately for the sword fallen just out of reach.  

" _Do not lie to me!_ " it shrieks—its voice belongs to neither man, and yet to both, a strange and horrible combination of Dorian's mellow baritone and a frantic, panicked tenor. " _You only want to trick me!_ " 

"I'm not! I swear by the Maker! Dorian is alive, and your father—your father is safe. He's alive, he's here. My scouts recovered him from the Venatori and I granted him clemency." Carver forces himself to stop babbling and breathe deep, staring into those eerie, burning eyes as the abomination peers down at him. "He works for me. Doing research. You know that's what he loves best. Felix..." 

The abomination shudders and turns, face twisting, and for a moment he doesn't see Dorian at all, only a viridescent young man with dark, hollow eyes and sunken cheeks, face marked with the lines of deadly illness.  

"That is your name, isn't it?" he offers gently. "Felix. I want to help you." 

"They told me the same thing." Any echo of Dorian's voice is gone—it's only Felix, now. But Carver has no thought of reaching for his blade, even when the abomination's grip on him relaxes, lowering him back to the floor. "They told me they just wanted to help." 

"I'm not lying," Carver says with force. "Haven't I proven that? Haven't I built a school for mages within the walls of my own fortress? Haven't I expended inumerable funds and resources to draw mages in from far and wide to study here, in safety and peace? You've seen the treaties. You've seen the paperwork—Maker, you've signed half the bloody things yourself. I am _not like them_."  

Felix slumps and covers his face with his hands. He still sits astride Carver's belly—Carver could easily flip him and pin him to the ground, grab for his sword... but no. Not yet. He takes a breath and reaches up to touch his elbow.   

"Can't you tell me what happened to you?"  

At first there is only a weighty silence. Then Felix drops his hands, looking at the palms as if he's never seen them before, touches his chest and face. He's wearing the clothes of a prisoner—the ragged shirt, the leathers trousers marked with dirt and ash—and as he reaches up to touch his mouth, a trickle of blood starts to run from his nose.   

" _They hurt me_ ,” he whispers. His voice sounds faint, as if it comes from somewhere far away, and as Carver watches, his skin grows pale and sallow and his body starts to flicker, becoming translucent as a mirage. “ _And then they locked me away, and I… I can’t get out… I can’t…_ ” 

There is a suddenly upheaval of weight, and the edges of Felix’s clothes catch fire—green fire, lighting his skin with a strange glow. But he doesn’t seem to notice. He wipes his face with the back of one hand, leaving a long smear of blood behind, and then his body convulses, bucking forward as if to fall. Carver shoves at him, scrambling out from underneath his weight, and grabs for his sword.  

When he turns back around, Felix is gone and Dorian is lying on his belly on the stone, his fine Tevinter garments smoking slightly. The entire room smells of blood and ash. Coughing into his elbow, Carver levels his sword at the man on the floor.  

“Dorian. Is it you?” 

Dorian groans and rolls onto his back. He’s got blood on his face, too, but no green eyes and no strange, layered voice as he says, “You must’ve made a pretty… ugh… poor Templar, if _that_ is how you discern whether a mage has become an abomination.” He coughs, and turns to spit a wad of bloody spit onto the floor. “Sorry--Maker, that’s foul.” 

With some measure of relief, Carver lays down his sword and goes to his knees to help him sit up. “Are you alright?” 

“I don’t know if _alright_ is the term I would use, but I’m certainly not dead.” He pats his face and chest in much the same way Felix had done, as if checking to see that everything is in its proper place. “Well. That was… illuminating.” 

“What did you find out?” 

Dorian drags his arm across his face, throwing his mustache askew but scraping most of the blood away, unlike Felix’s earlier, clumsier attempt. When he drops his arm he sags, face shuttered and aching with old grief. “You told me you believed you were being haunted, Inquisitor. Haunted by the ghost of my best friend.” 

“That’s right,” Carver agrees hesitantly. _Where is he going with this?_  

“You weren’t entirely wrong—you are definitely being haunted. But, Inquisitor…” He looks up at him, brows drawn together in a knot of confusion. “Felix isn’t dead.”  


	4. the promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An epiphany.

"Forgive me, Inquisitor," Solas says thinly, voice as chilly as the stiff Frostback breeze, "but I am at something of a loss to discern why you didn't come to me with this... _issue_... in a more timely manner." 

"You're forgiven, then," Carver shoots back. From somewhere behind him, he hears Dorian cough conspicuously. He returns Solas' sour look with a bland smile. "I did what I thought was best at the time, that's all. And now I would _very_ much appreciate your input, Solas. This is your area of expertise, is it not?" 

"Very well." The elf sniffs, but seems appeased, gesturing for the two of them to pull up seats to his desk like a king deigning to acknowledge the common rabble. "Lay out the situation for me, as concisely as possible, please." He touches his fingertips together in front of his mouth, and waits.  

Carver exchanges a glance with Dorian, and launches into it. "Since the Breach was closed in Haven, I've been... haunted... by a spirit, or ghost. Or something." He pauses at the disgruntled flare of Solas' nostrils before pressing on. Concise. Right. "At first it was just a presence I could feel, not really hostile, just _there_. Then as we settled in Skyhold it started to grow clearer, and so did its—so did _his_ message. He wanted me to protect the mages, ensure that they were properly taught instead of scattered to the four winds and the whims of rebel templars. He wasn't very pleased with me for abandoning Redcliffe's mages," he explains, contrite. He knows Solas hadn't exactly approved of his decision, even if the elf had kept his thoughts to himself. He clears his throat and presses on. "Eventually I realized it was the ghost of someone I knew—well, someone I'd met once before, anyway. Felix Alexius." 

"The son of the magister?" Solas inquires, surprised.  

"That's right. And Dorian's best friend. Once I realized, I went to him, and we sort of... well..." 

"I attempted to make contact," Dorian offers. "It didn't really go well." 

When neither man makes an attempt to clarify, Solas looks between them and sighs. "I am an elven apostate, gentlemen—hardly a Chantry lackey. Anything you have to say you may say with complete confidence in my discretion." 

"Right." Carver takes a breath. "So, Felix possessed him. And... spoke to me." 

"He spoke to you. Had he not done so before?" 

"Not really. He could write, a little—he _can_ write, that is. And interact with the physical world, sometimes, but it's very spotty. And I've sort of gotten the hang of interpreting his..." Carver wriggles his fingers helplessly.  

Solas narrows his eyes. "I see. Most interesting. Continue then, if it please you." 

"He said a few things I didn't really understand, about being tricked, and he seemed incredulous of the fact that Dorian was alive, and currently, er... housing him. And then Dorian regained control, and that's where I'll let him take over. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it all." 

At Solas' inquiring glance, Dorian straightens and sits forward in his seat like a pupil reciting his lessons for his teaching master. "When Felix took control of me, I think we... switched places. He into the real world, for a time, and I into the Fade. And that's where I realized that Felix wasn't a ghost at all—that is, he wasn't dead. He was alive... _in_ the Fade." 

And just like that, something switches on in Solas. He sits up straight and his eyes open fully, seeming a little brighter than before. " _In_ the Fade? Physically?" 

"Yes. Just like our own Inquisitor was at Adamant, when he encountered the Fear Demon." 

"How? How did he get there? And how is he crossing the Veil, even incorporeally, to visit the Inquisitor?" 

"I'm not sure of that bit. I only know that he is currently trapped in the Fade, and in his own head. I don't know who put him there—I suspect the Venatori." 

"But if it were the Venatori, then Corypheus would be able to replicate that trick and we would all be his brainwashed minions," Carver argues, scowling when Dorian waves him off with a flick of his perfectly manicured fingers.  

"I don't disagree. However, whatever Felix has managed to do is obviously not what Corypheus wants. Felix isn't free to roam the Fade, Inquisitor. He is caught in a trap of his own devising— _he believes he is dead_. I wandered his prison, for a little while, before coming back to myself. I believe it's a construction of his subconscious, which he is only able to leave in part thanks to his tether to you." He nods to Carver, not seeming entirely pleased about this fact.  

"What tether?" Carver asks. "What connection could I possibly have to him that you don't?" 

"Believe me, I've asked myself the same question," Dorian says dryly. "But whatever happened to him before entering the Fade clearly has something to do with it." 

"And what _did_ happen to him?"  

Solas' question goes unanswered. Carver looks at his hands. "I'm not sure. Capture, imprisonment. Torture, perhaps. That's a question only he can answer." 

"Whatever that answer is," Solas says at last, "the more important question is how to get him out. If Corypheus is aware of him, he will surely be trying to exploit him as a way to enter the Fade. Or as a way to get to _you_ , Inquisitor." He leans back in his chair, hands steepled together once more, effectively dismissing them in one gesture. "I must think on this. I will find you when I have something to go on." 

"Right. Thanks." Carver stands, feeling awkward, and straightens his tunic. It doesn't sit quite as well as it used to. Either someone's been tampering with his seams, or he's eating too many meat pies with dinner these last few evenings.  

"One more thing," Solas says as they make their way out of the rotunda. "Do you ever dream of him?" 

It's a strangely intimate question, and it takes Carver aback for a moment as he considers it. "I've never met him in the Fade, no. But if he's imprisoned or whatever, then I wouldn't, would I?" 

It's not precisely what Solas had asked, but it satisfies him. Thus released, Carver bids farewell to Dorian and peels off to find Josie for his next appointment. 

//

The next few months show little progress, in spite of Solas' promises. Carver is torn increasingly between his duties as Inquisitor and his personal convictions—and sometimes he slips, managing to earn everyone's ire when he puts Gaspard on the throne with Briala in the shadows at his back, and executes the usurper by his own sword.  

Then he's busy freezing to death in the Makerforsaken Emprise du Lion, killing more Venatori than he can count and dueling a desire demon for the frozen spit of land at the arse end of Orlais.  _That_ one almost gets him killed, and he spends the next few weeks lying about at Skyhold, growing surly and irritable while his aides run hither and yon dispensing his judgment wherever it's needed. 

Strangely, through all of this, Felix is one of the few things keeping him sane. At least from his sickbed he has plenty of time to work on his communication skills. He learns to interpret the moods and auras of his spirit friend, and manages to learn a few things—namely that Felix believes, quite firmly, that he is dead, and will not be dissuaded from it.  

The nuances of explaining the truth—that Felix is a prisoner in his own mind—fail to make an impression, to Carver's endless irritation. Fade logic is cut and dried compared to the real world, and Felix's subconscious, or whatever he's interacting with, views the world very simply: he, Felix, is dead. Carver is alive. Carver is _important_ , and has the power to effect the change that Felix desires. Thus, Felix haunts Carver until he gets what he wants.  

What Carver fails to understand is _why_. From conversations with Dorian late into the night, he learned more about Felix than he had ever cared to know—first loves, childhood spats, attempted assassinations—and none of it seemed to indicate a particular awareness of the plight of southern mages or a desire for their emancipation.  

"I wish you could just _tell_ me," Carver says one day, lying on the couch in his suite after a particularly trying day of physical therapy. His healer, a half-Dalish woman with arms of steel, had been brutal today, and he doesn't even have the energy to make it to his bed. Felix is sitting on the other end of the sofa, more solid than he's been in weeks, eyes turned inward as if he's in another world entirely. But Carver knows he's listening. "Why can't you speak, anyway? Most spirits can. Most spirits won't shut up." 

He's thinking of Justice as he says it, but then, he supposes Felix isn't your typical spirit. He shuts his eyes and folds his hands over his chest, thinking.  

"If I could find you, in the Fade, would I be able to... get in? Would you even recognize me there?" 

Solas has strongly cautioned against attempting such a thing, but Carver has never put much stock in what other people think he should do. Particularly his brother. Carver sighs. As annoying as Garrett can be, even now, he wishes he were here to give his input. Weisshaupt may need him, but Carver needs him more. Not that he would ever admit it.  

"I bet I could open a portal to you, if I really tried." He considers his Mark, always a flickering green light in the palm of his hand. "But would you come with me? Back here, to the real world?" 

There's no answer, of course. Not a verbal one, anyway. But Felix is looking at him now, chin propped on his hand, and he looks... sad. A deep sense of melancholy sweeps over Carver and he pushes himself up to sitting, ignoring the pain dragging at his semi-healed body, and reaches along the back of the couch. Felix's shoulder is just out of reach. Would he feel anything, if they were to touch? Or would it just be empty air? 

"Stop looking at me like that," he says gruffly. "You're not dead. I don't care what you say." 

He can't lean any further forward—just this much contortion is causing sweat to pop out along his hairline and upper lip. He scowls and crooks a finger at him.  

"Come _here_ , you bugger. I need to know you're the real thing." 

To his surprise, Felix actually does. He unfolds his legs and scoots along the couch as if he were made of flesh and bone, and when he's within reaching distance he offers his shoulder for Carver to touch. But there's no substance to him, not really. His hand passes straight through to the back of the couch with only a slight tingle to denote where Felix's ghostly body sits.  

His chest and arm flare with pain, and Carver flops back onto the cushions with a groan. "All right then. I guess it was too much to hope for." 

Felix disappears for a little while after that. Gradually Carver recovers, and soon he's in the field again, running hither and yon all over Thedas cleaning up other people's messes. The Arbor Wilds is a shitshow, but at least he's alive, and now he has one up on the old darkspawn bastard when all this comes to a head.  

It takes the Inquisition troops a few weeks to make the return trek, and in the meantime Skyhold is quiet. Almost too quiet. Carver goes for a lot of walks in the early morning, patrolling his fortress, catching up with his companions and the people who have cleaved themselves to his cause.  

Construction on the mage tower is completed one early spring day soon after the troops return. Carver misses it—he's busy chasing down Morrigan's son, of all things—and when he's back in the real world the sun has already sunk behind the mountains and he's dead on his feet. His mind, however, is spinning like a top. Corypheus had wanted the eluvian to enter the Fade physically. Kieran, with a little help from Mythal, had wandered into the Fade as well. So why not Carver?  

He can't say anything to Solas, he knows that much. And when he goes to Dorian's rooms, he's absent. Busy _riding the bull_ , he thinks with a snort. Thus defeated—and his belly grumbling irritably for sustenance—he turns his feet toward the kitchens.  

He's long since missed supper, but he's able to scrounge some bread and cheese and a round, rosy apple to take to his rooms. And as he had hoped, he isn't alone. There's a distinct air of someone else nearby—heavy storm clouds seem to linger in the shadows of the ceiling, as if his ethereal visitor is sulking. Carver makes a beeline for his desk and unburdens himself there, pushing aside reports and paperwork to make room for his humble meal.  

"Whatever it is," he says aloud, producing a knife from his boot to pare the apple, "it can wait until after I've eaten." 

There's no verbal response, of course, but the air seems to settle and sigh, and a knot of tension that had been forming in the back of his neck goes lax again.  

"Right. Thanks." He lines up a slice of bread with a slice of cheese, and then a bit of apple on top of that. "Sorry to eat in front of you," he adds as an afterthought, and then shoves the lot into his mouth.  

He finishes his humble meal, polishing it off with half a bottle of wine some thoughtful servant had left at his desk, and moseys through a few reports before setting them aside. His head aches already at the prospect of reading through more of Cullen's cramped, erratic handwriting—or maybe that's just the last few tinges of lyrium withdrawal snarling at his system. It's growing harder and harder to tell these days.  

A waft of cool air washes over him suddenly, and he sighs, turning his face into the draft. Someone must have left a window open when they came in to clean. His candle gutters in the breeze and then grows strong again, and he fancies he feels icy fingers on the sweaty nape of his neck.  

"Felix?" he asks softly. There's no verbal response, but the cool fingers squeeze his neck and then move into his hair, combing through it until his scalp tingles with relief. He lets his eyes drift shut again.  

Time stretches and slows, and he dozes for a little while with his head on the desk, letting his spirit friend soothe away the aches of a long day. Eventually he comes back to himself. The candle has burned another hour away, his reports are still there waiting for him, and there's a man sitting on the end of his desk, bare feet swinging over the floor. He's dressed as he always is—loose, ratty shirt, bedraggled trousers, feet and hands bare and scraped as if he's been worked nearly to death without any protective gear. He's got something in his hands that he's fiddling with, head bent over it and his face drawn snug in concentration. An abacus, Carver realizes, made in miniature as if crafted for a child's use.  

He shifts, pushing himself upright, and Felix startles, abacus disappearing into thin air. He looks almost contrite as he folds his hands in his lap, and Carver grins, leaning back in his chair.  

"Hello there. I was hoping I'd find you here." 

Felix looks away. He almost seems agitated, the air around him humming with pent-up energy.  

"What bee's gotten into your bonnet, then? S'pose you can't exactly tell me, can you." He tidies the papers on his desk into some sort of order, wondering how to broach the subject. "Look. I know you're dead, and all, but I think I've found a way to... get around that. No promises, but... well, we'll just have to see." 

Felix cocks his head at him. His gaze is very direct, as if he's trying to peel Carver's skin away to get at the secrets underneath. He shudders and pushes back from the desk.  

"Fine, I won't talk about it. I know you don't like it when I try and tell you that you're alive. And I've got something to show you, anyway. You _can_ leave this room, right? Or is it me you're attached to?" 

Too many questions at once—Felix doesn’t make any move to answer. So Carver stands and jerks his head toward the door. 

"C'mon, this way. I think you'll like it." 

He gets as far as the door before he turns around. Felix has climbed down off the desk and is hovering beside it—literally hovering, an inch or two away from the floor—and staring after him with a strange, plaintive look on his face. Carver waves at him.  

"Follow me. I promise it'll be worth it." 

The hour is so late that he meets almost no one on his walk to the Tower. It's what people have taken to calling it, as it was built, and it's a fitting title. Now completed, it stands nearly the height of the central castle, its gable home to a weathervane that gleams in the sun and reflects the silvery light of the moon whenever it's full. In short, it's impressive, even intimidating, though Carver fears they will soon have to expand the living quarters elsewhere as word spreads that the Inquisition has become a safe haven for mages seeking refuge and learning. Madame de Fer had overseen the dormitory assignments, and they're already over half capacity.  

A loose kind of curfew has been imposed, although subject to the needs of the students, and all is quiet and still in the Tower. Ser Barris is on duty when Carver lets himself in, and nods in acknowledgement. Carver likes Ser Barris. He keeps himself to himself and doesn’t pry with intrusive questions—he knows (as many do, by now) that the Inquisitor keeps odd hours and is wont to pacing in the small hours of the morning, making his own lonely patrol through the halls and corridors of Skyhold. Tonight, for all anyone knows, is no different.  

Up a flight of stairs is one of the instruction rooms, its dimensions as wide as the tower itself, but separated by screens woven through with charms and wards of protection. Carver walks slowly through, checking that everything is in its place and tidied for the next day’s work. As he goes, he gradually becomes aware of Felix at his side once again, a chill presence drifting along at his shoulder. Satisfied, he takes the next set of stairs up to the library and alchemist labs, and then up again to the senior workspaces, where full-fledged enchanters may sign out a room for an hour or two to cast in private or in small study groups.  

When he reaches the top, a narrow balcony spanning the edges of the newly-appointed roof, he leans against one of the crenellations and waits for Felix to appear beside him.  

“Well? What do you think?” 

The spirit flickers into view, nearly translucent in the light of the moon, and suddenly he’s standing so close that Carver can feel the cold radiating from his ghostly form. But then he forgets the chill entirely, because the smile Felix is wearing eclipses everything else.  

 _You did it._  

The words fall into his head fully-formed, ringing with elation, so unlike the garbled terror that he'd heard when Felix wore Dorian's body.  

" _We_ did it," he corrects, grinning at Felix's irrepressible excitement. He's vibrating so hard he's practically invisible, and yet Carver feels his presence more acutely than he ever has. "I was able to do all this because of you. So I'm going to return the favor." 

Felix hesitates, slowing to a slow, spiraling hum that moves through his limbs like astral water. When Carver reaches out, he feels skin and cloth, and the firm weight of bone under flesh where his wrist pokes out of his voluminous shirt. Felix startles, but he holds fast, crowing inwardly in triumph.  

"I'm going to set you free."  


	5. warm bodies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver blows off some steam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's ghost porn in this one. sorry not sorry

There's a bath waiting when he arrives in his quarters. Heedless of the blood and demon gunk still encrusted to his armor, Carver strips in record time and dumps it in a pile on the floor for someone else to worry about—one of the few perks of the job that he's learned to stop feeling guilty over—and plunks himself into the enormous copper tub one blistered foot at a time. Runes have kept it steaming hot, and it smells like vanilla and cloves. He exhales long and slow, tipping his head back against the rim and sinking down until the hot, aromatic water laps at his chin and soaks into his hair and beard. Bliss. 

There's a bit of a clatter from the other side of the room. He props himself up enough to peer over the edge of the bath but sees nothing out of the ordinary. Then he notices the vambrace sitting a little ways apart from the rest of his armor, the one that Dagna wrestled into submission so as to cover the Mark, and he subsides back into the water.  

“Don’t be shy. You know I don’t mind you hanging around.” 

There’s no sound, but a waft of bitterly cold air passes by and he wriggles down until he’s covered to the tip of his nose. Thank goodness for sizeable tubs. When he peeks over the rim he can see a faint shimmer, like a haze of heat in the desert, but this is no mirage.  

“Did you miss me while I was gone?” 

No audible answer, but the hazy patch drifts closer and sort of collects at the edge of the tub, like it’s pulled up a stool to say hello. Carver will take that as a yes. 

“Could’ve used you out there, you know. It’s too bloody hot in the Wastes. You’d have to stay outside at night, of course, it’s colder than Maferath’s nutsack once the sun goes down, but y’know. Bet it would be more interesting than sitting here and staring at these four walls the whole time.” 

The haze seems to flare with disgust.  

“Oh, sorry. D’you actually wander the grounds, then? Rattling your chains? Only I’ve never seen you anywhere but here, except that one time at the Tower. Can’t blame a man for making assumptions.” 

When there’s no response, Carver gives up on making one-sided conversation and reaches for the soap. Maker, but it feels good—scraping the sand off his skin, prying it out of every crevice, scrubbing his beard and scalp until his skin feels raw in the best way. He’s been shitting sand for weeks, it feels like, and now he’s finally free of it.  

His shaving kit is hanging handily off the side of the tub, but when he reaches for it, it slides inexplicably out of his grip and onto the floor with a clatter. The waxed leather case pops open and the little vial of shaving oil rolls out and away across the floor, coming to a slow stop under his desk. Carver sighs.  

“Was that really necessary?” 

The haze flickers, solidifying a little—just enough for him to make out a smirk on his visitor’s face. He sighs and flicks water at him, but it falls harmlessly to the flagstone floor in a dark splatter.  

“Bloody bastard. Make yourself useful then, and get me a towel.” 

He’s still not entirely sure how it works. It used to be that Felix was rarely more than a patch of haze or cold air, manifesting sometimes into a pale shadow of a person whenever he wanted to make a point. Since the Tower's completion, he's rarely hard to find, pacing Carver's rooms fully-fledged, or sitting at his desk scribbling away at his reports. It must be deadly boring in the Fade if he's stooped to actually reading the bloody things, but he forges Carver's signature perfectly, so he doesn't complain.  

At least they’ve reached a consensus, or at least a stalemate. There are no more fights, no more random bursts of furious energy that leave Carver nearly on the verge of collapse; and in turn Carver works as hard as he can to bring justice to the mages that were slaughtered at Corypheus’ hand—the Tower, in truth, was only the beginning. A hard bargain, but not an impossible one, and not one that he is unwilling to fulfill. He has his own reasons for being a “mage-lover,” as some call him, but he’s not ashamed of the title. He thinks of his sister, and he’s proud.  

A towel is dropped on his head abruptly, and he sputters, grabbing at it to keep it from falling into the water. He peers around its folds, glaring. Felix is nearly entirely solid now—a little faded perhaps, desaturated, reduced to shades of brownish grey but not featureless, not without form—and he's hovering a few inches above the floor with a self-satisfied expression. Carver growls at him and stands, a little unsteady, bracing himself on the side of the tub. There’s a rug beside it that he steps on to, one foot at a time, and when he’s on stable ground and squeezing water from his hair and beard he looks up. 

And is… befuddled. Felix is staring at him still, but all the playfulness has drained out of his face and his eyes look…  

Carver doesn’t have the time to decide _how_ he looks. Felix turns away suddenly, whisking to the other side of the room to rummage about his desk, leaving him standing there dripping on the carpet.  

“Oi! Don’t mess anything up, all right? I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet since I got back.” Working quickly with one eye to his not-so-friendly ghost, he pats himself cursorily and knots the towel around his waist before padding to the desk. Felix isn’t causing mischief, though, just playing idly with a paperweight, tossing it back and forth between his hands. It’s a bit jarring to see—the lump of carved wood is heavy, a silent gift from Rainier after the fiasco in Val Royeaux, but he shows no sign of strain in keeping corporeal.  

“Hey.” 

Felix starts, and the paperweight falls to the ground between his bare feet. His feet that are… on the ground. Cautious, Carver reaches for his arm.  

The sensation is… very odd. He can’t fully pass through Felix’s body, held in check by some kind of buzzing cluster of energy that forms his… form. And he can feel the texture of his shirt, the roughspun cotton, the thick, ill-made seams. Felix turns toward him and Carver steps back, hands held up and empty.  

“I’m sorry. I just… something’s going on. What is it?” 

Felix has never spoken to him aloud, though he has tried, nor ever shown himself to require basic human necessities—never been hungry, or thirsty, or needed to bathe. He’s a _spirit_. Subject to the strange whims and logic of the Fade. And yet now his expression is incredibly complex, hard for Carver to discern—his eyes dart toward him and away again just as rapidly, his pale brows furrowed and his mouth twisted with strain. Deciding to try his luck, Carver touches his arm again, and Felix actually bumps into the desk to get away from him.  

 _Don’t_.  

It isn’t said aloud, but Carver swear he hears the voice regardless. “I’m sorry,” he says contritely, putting his hands behind his back. “I can keep my hands to myself.” 

His spirit friend relaxes, just a little. His brow is still all knotted, though, and Carver has the strangest urge to reach up and smooth those ghostly wrinkles.  

“Hey. Want to tell me what’s going on?” 

Felix shakes his head, but his eyes don’t drift from Carver’s midsection where they seem to be glued. Carver looks down at himself. There’s a scar there, but it’s old, a souvenir from Ostagar. Felix has seen it before, surely. He’s getting a bit thick in the waist, he notes absently with some level of regret, but he’s not exactly a young man anymore. He should be grateful he can run around Thedas at the level that his position requires. And at least his abdomen is still something to see.  

 _Something to see._ Oh, Maker, surely not…? 

“Well,” he says, forcedly nonchalant, “If it’s nothing important, I guess I’ll go back to my ablutions.” His hands are still behind his back. Without moving away from the desk where he somehow, inexplicably, has Felix pinned, he finds the knot in his towel and loosens it, and the entire garment drops to the ground in a heap.  

If a squeak could have an expression, Felix certainly makes it. His eyes pop wide and he turns in a rush of cold air to face the desk. Carver snickers and bends to fetch the towel, finally giving him some space.  

“Like what you see, huh? Didn’t think ghosts could get all… er…” He wriggles his fingers to fill in the gaps, not that Felix is even looking at him. Predictably, Felix doesn’t answer—but neither does he dissipate and leave to walk the Fade for a little while. “Look, it doesn’t bother me, okay? Maybe it’s a little… unorthodox, but hey. I’m flattered. A man likes to know that he’s still got it.” 

Felix tosses him a look over his shoulder that’s as good as a scoff.  

“What? It’s true! I’m old and decrepit, Fee, that’s just the sad truth.” His words have the desired effect—Felix’s eyes trail down his body again, lingering between his legs were his cock hangs semi-soft in its nest of curls. Carver’s not sure how he feels about the twinge of arousal that accompanies that glance, but he decides he’s not going to pursue it too closely. He’s tired, he’s horny, and it’s been bloody ages—since before all this _Herald_ business at least—since he’s had a warm body in his bed. Felix isn’t exactly a warm body, but… well. His eyes are warm enough.  

“You can stick around, if you want,” he says, embarrassed at the rough quality of his voice. He’s already salivating, body priming itself for copulation. _Just the same old hand, buddy_ , he thinks, walking backwards a pace at a time to the bed. Felix still isn’t looking away. “Just to watch, or, y’know. Whatever strikes your fancy.” 

Felix looks incredulous, he thinks, but Carver doesn’t much care. He’s had worse things than ghosts in his bed before.  

Speaking of which. His calves hit the bed, so bloody low to the ground, and so _wide_ , wider by far than he really needs, and he flops down onto the mattress with a sigh. He pinches his foreskin lightly, drawing it up and back a few times, eyes slanting shut. His skin is still damp enough that his own hand is comfortable, but give or take a few minutes and it won’t be. He wraps a hand around his girth and squeezes, just to get the blood flowing proper, and reaches into the bedside table.  

Maker bless Dorian. He could never bugger the man—too high-maintenance for Carver’s tastes—but by the Veil he knows his requisitions. This stuff is prime, imported from Orlais, where noblemen go to fancy, discreet whorehouses to have their roosters sucked and their arses seen to on lily-white sheets. It smells lovely, too, not all perfumed and cloying like he would’ve expected, but light and vaguely herbal, almost like a healing salve. And it feels so, so bloody good. He sighs and tips his head back as he takes a healthy dribble in the palm of his hand and slides it all down his cock, root to tip and back again. _Maker have mercy._  

He peers across the room as he tugs rhythmically, slowly eking out the burn. Felix has drifted a little closer, just a hairsbreadth or two above the floor as if he’s forgotten to mind himself. And he’s watching. Definitely, no mistake. His hands hang by his sides, and Carver can’t really make out through his clothes whether he’s _affected_ _—_ and how could he be, anyway? He’s a ghost, or a memory, made from Fade-stuff, not real flesh and blood. There’s a strange pang of disappointment at that thought, and then he shakes it off.  

 _He’s not your friend, Inquisitor_ , Solas’ voice says in his mind, calm and cool as ever. _He is a disturbed spirit, haunting you for whatever reason makes sense to his Fade-logic. You cannot connect with him like you might a mortal being._  

Perhaps, Carver muses morbidly, he should ask Cole. But then the twist of his hand distracts him from that line of thought, and soon he stops thinking altogether.  

It’s been a long few weeks in the Wastes. Sometimes he thinks he sees Bull giving him the side-eye, particularly after a bloody battle, but Carver keeps his distance. Sleeping with the men (or women) under his command seems… inadvisable. Particularly the kind who knows what half of Skyhold looks like naked from personal experience. And tossing off a quick one while sharing a tent with two other people—sometimes more—has never sat well with him.  

But that lack makes his own touch seem all the sweeter now. He leans back on one elbow and props a heel on the bed, opening his pelvis up to Felix’s gaze. His balls have drawn up tight and the cool air against his arsehole is… inviting. He looks at Felix standing a few feet away— _Maker, when did he get so close?—_ and wonders what it would be like to have a few of those ghostly digits inside of him.  

 _Andraste forgive me_ , he thinks, and groans aloud. Another reason to keep chaste on missions—he’s noisy. He can’t help it. It had gotten him in trouble a few times, in the Templar barracks, but the Knight Captain was always lenient. Too many other, more serious matters weighing on his mind—and that’s not what Carver wants to be thinking about right now.  

“Oh sweet Maker,” he gasps, twisting thumb and forefinger around the frenulum. “Nnnnngh… yeah, fuck me, fuck me…” 

Nonsense words, with only himself to touch and pleasure him, but the words fall out anyway. He lets his cock slap against his belly and reaches down to massage his hole. It’s been a while, and his fingers aren’t slick enough to get inside, but he rubs the opening and moans like a whore until he could swear Felix has a blush sitting prettily on his semi-transparent skin.  

“Oh… oh…” He tugs his balls, rubbing the skin behind hard enough that he sees stars. When his vision clears, Felix is nearly within reach, eyes as round as saucers and unblinking as Carver’s hand returns to his prick. He slows his strokes, dragging it out—with his thumb he probes the slit, wiping the slick around the head of his cock, and when he fists the length again he aims it away from him, towards… Felix.  

“Want a taste?” he gasps, half-laughing, giddy with this unknown power he has over him.  

Then Felix drops to his knees. Carver gapes at him, mouth hanging open, and Felix has the gall to _smirk_ at him, as if this was his idea all along. After a moment or two of paralyzed stillness, Carver lets his knees fall open wider, and is rewarded when Felix leans in and drags ghostly fingers along his inner thighs. The sensation is very faint, more like the whisper of a mouth exhaling empty promises than actual touch, but it’s enough. Carver fucks his hand, leaning forward on his elbow to watch as Felix leans in close and seems to put his mouth where Carver had only recently had his hand.  

And that is… oh, Maker. The very slightest pressure, cool and tingling, an undulating rhythm that he could swear belongs to a ghostly tongue.  

“Fuck!” he shouts, so loud it echoes off the ceiling. “Fucking Maker, _how_ …?” 

But it doesn’t matter how. All that matters is that Felix is kissing him _there_ , tongue swirling and probing, or so it must be, though it’s like no tongue he’s ever felt before. The one time Rue had done this for him, her mouth had been small and hot and very, very wet. Felix’s mouth is broad and formless, more like the implacable pressure of cold water than a human tongue, but it feels so good and the way he _looks_ , pale and incandescent in the dying sunlight with his eyes dark and intent on Carver’s face and his mouth buried between his legs… 

Carver sobs when he finds release, hand slowing as he pumps seed onto his belly. The room swirls, and he’s almost grateful when Felix parts from him, only to come crawling up his body and cover him in that same cool, tingling sensation, like a stormy night condensed and given form. There are rain clouds in his eyes and lightning on his tongue—and then Felix leans down to kiss him and he is swept away into the dark and into sleep.  

When he wakes, he is alone. Someone has tucked him properly into bed, though he’s still naked beneath the coverlet. The bath has been taken away and a solitary candle burns beside his bed. He groans to think of what the maid must have seen, cock out and spend everywhere… 

 _Felix._  

Maker, what did he do? He rolls out of bed in an instant, naked as a babe, and fetches the candle by its holder to search the room. His armor is gone, too, taken away to be cleaned, and fresh clothing laid out on the couch for tomorrow. His desk is neat as a pin, some of the paperwork already filled out and sitting in a neat pile separate from the rest—Felix's doing. Feeling even worse, he goes to one of the balconies and finds the door ajar. He steps through.  

Felix is there, sitting on the balcony and swinging his feet over empty space. Even though Carver knows he couldn't possibly hurt himself, his stomach twists anyway with fear and vertigo. 

"Fee. Get away from there, please." 

Felix blurs a little, his outline growing dim and shadowy against the night sky, and then he's himself again. There's a moue of amusement on his mouth as he dismounts from the balcony and comes a few paces toward the doors. Carver swallows.  

"Am I forgiven, then?" 

Felix cocks his head to one side.  

"For... earlier." Ridiculously, he feels the urge to cover himself—not from the night's chill, but from Felix's gaze. But he resists the urge and holds his palm around the flame of the candle instead, guarding against it going out. "It wasn't very... well, I don't know what it was, exactly, but surely it was... out of... line?" 

Felix drifts closer with every word, and suddenly the candle goes out. Carver licks his lips nervously. It's hard to tell in the dark, on a face that doesn't really exist, but he doesn’t _look_ upset. And then there are cool hands on his chest, firm but not bullying, coaxing him back inside and back into bed. Carver follows those chivvying hands dumbly, and when he's back in bed with the covers pulled up to his chin, Felix leans down and kisses his forehead.  

He can feel his lips. They're a bit cooler than they would be if they belonged to a living being, but they're definitely there, firm and textured and a little bit moist when he pulls away. Felix smiles at him, knowing. And then he's gone.  

"Does this mean you're okay with it?" Carver says aloud. But there's no answer. Grumbling to himself about snarky ghosts with poor tastes in humor, he rolls over and falls, eventually, back to sleep.  


	6. the vessel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix takes charge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry. more ghost sex and consensual possession. Em is an enabler.

Carver decides it's a one-off. It must be. Felix will likely not even remember it—his memory is a faulty thing, subject to the whims of the cause that drives him. Justice for mages. And not just justice, but recompense. Training. A livelihood. The basic rights of human beings, bestowed on a group of people that have always been seen as less. It's a hard, lonely road, and Carver has earned his enemies but he walks it still.  

Although not entirely alone after all, it turns out. Carver is busy all the next day with political machinations and dispensing judgements—the Tevinter he hires as a smuggler and informant, which sours a few faces in the crowd, but he thinks of Felix as he does it and Dorian thanks him later, so it was worth it—and when he returns to his chambers he's surprised to find Felix there waiting for him.  

He looks so real and solid that Carver does a double take. He's standing by the door to the west-facing balcony, though the door was closed when last he knew, looking out over Skyhold to the Tower, its warm sandstone façade glowing rose-gold in the light of the dying sun. Carver waits by the stairs to see if he will fade away, but he doesn't. Instead he turns, somehow sensing Carver's presence, and offers a shy smile from across the room—the very same way someone might if they had slept with you the night before and were now unsure of where they stood.  

Carver frees the first few buttons of his tunic and comes a few steps further into the room. "Hey." 

Felix's smile flickers. _Is that all?_  

Carver isn't sure. What's the proper protocol for the morning after with a ghost? Helpless, he's quite prepared to stand there all night and shuffle his feet like a naughty schoolboy when Felix holds out his hand.  

For a moment, Carver only stares. Then Felix twitches his fingers in invitation, and he finds himself stepping forward like a fish on a line, incapable of resisting him. When he gets close enough, Felix drops his arm and hovers as near as he can without passing through Carver entirely. His eyes are half-shut and his lips are parted, and Carver swears that if he only leaned forward he could taste him.  

 _Kiss me._  

The words are very distinct, so sharp and clear that he's not sure if he heard them or thought them himself. A little bit breathless, a little bit strained. He opens his eyes and Felix looks half-starved.  

"When was the last time you felt like this?" he wonders aloud. For answer, energy seems to surge and flow around them both, and cool air rushes up from the floor and tickles the back of Carver's neck. Felix tilts his head as if to lean it on Carver's shoulder, but he only feels a tingling kind of pressure where there should be warmth and weight. The ache to touch him properly is almost overwhelming, but it's impossible.  

"I'm sorry," he whispers, drawing his fingertips through the crystalline energy of his spine. Felix arches forward and his mouth drops open in a silent cry. "Is this," Carver stammers, "is it—good? Like this?" 

 _More_ , comes the silent demand, and Felix's eyes are burning up from the inside.  

"I want to. _Maker_ I want to, but I don't know how." 

 _There is a way._  

He shouldn't want this. Shouldn't crave the slick slide of another consciousness fitting alongside his own, a carnal abomination in his own right—but he does, Andraste help him. If she even exists. If any of this even exists. At this rate he wouldn't be surprised if he were dreaming.  

Felix is no desire demon—he is too clumsy for that, too unpracticed—but the way he opens his mouth and swallows Carver whole is more erotic than anything he's ever felt before. When he looks down at himself next, it is not solely through his own eyes, and when his body moves, fingers plucking at his clothes and tongue darting out to dampen dust-dry lips, he is not the sole commander of his frame. It belongs now, in part, to another, for a little while, and the fiery feeling of it suffuses him with desire a dozenfold.  

They find the bed, somehow. Carver falls on his back and gasps for air while Felix tears at his clothes, fingers fumbling—they don't know the rhythm of the fastenings the way he does, but when Carver tries to take over he's brushed aside and he lets it happen, too turned on to speak. It's a bit odd, how quickly he's gone from semi-interested to _aching;_ Felix's desire floods him and compounds his own until he's not sure where he ends and Felix begins.  

And then Felix finally gets a hand inside his pants. It's an utterly strange experience—it feels like his own hand, but he can't _feel_ his hand, isn't at all in control of it or of himself. The disconnect rattles his bones and makes his head ache, at first, but Felix seems to get the hang of things a little, and in a minute or two the discomfort passes. 

And then it's just the two of them in one body, so impossibly close that they inhabit one skin and breathe one breath. Carver can feel him, intimately, and that press of consciousnesses is almost more erotic than the way he works his prick in an unfamiliar rhythm, or the way Felix fixates on his chest and stomach.  

"Knew you liked that," he gasps, wrangling control of his vocal chords just enough to tease as Felix plucks insistently on his nipples, one at a time. Felix doesn't answer with his mouth, but he hears laughter inside his head and a long, desperate groan rises up from his belly that doesn't entirely belong to him. He cedes control and lays back, letting it happen. The touch of his own hands turned curious and new, the small sounds of pleasure that are partly his and partly another's.  

 _You are beautiful_ , Felix tells him sincerely, in a brief moment of slowness. His strokes grow leisurely and decadent, and Carver widens his thighs to let Felix get a finger up inside his body. It strains his shoulder, a bit, the one he'd nearly lost in the Emprise, and so Felix relaxes and stretches it up above his head and under the pillow—it's a move he hated during therapy, but it feels amazing now to let Felix take it over, stretching the gnarled skin and the sore tendons underneath.  

"I'm a broken-down wreck," he grits out, feet skidding against the sheets for better purchase. "And I'm getting fat." 

 _Beautiful_ , Felix insists, almost sounding irritated by his rebuttal. _You are the sun._  

Herald indeed, Carver thinks. And then he comes, finally, in a great rush of sensation that blows through him like a heaving ocean wave and leaves him boneless and spent and strangely empty in the aftermath.  

Empty, he realizes after a while, because Felix has left him. He is alone in his own head. And beside him, sprawled on the blankets without a stitch of clothing, is Felix. Carver has never seen him undressed before—he hopes he can be forgiven for staring. Felix is... well. Stunning, in a word. Slim and well-proportioned, with elegant fingers and toes that are just this side of too long. His cock lays against his belly, semi-hard but softening, and though it's difficult to tell with how he flickers and fades, Carver fancies he can see droplets of spend decorating his belly.  

"You're not so bad yourself, you know," he croaks.  

Felix half-smiles, one eye opening a crack to look at him. He's so transparent now that Carver can barely see him, but even when he fades from view he can feel a slight chill in the air that follows him into sleep. And when he wakes in the morning, curled up on the covers with dried spend sticking him to the sheets, there is a slight impression in the bedding next to him, as if someone had spent the night and only just slipped away as morning broke over the mountains.  


	7. the descent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carver walks into the Fade.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I moved, I got sidetracked by a thousand other aus, life happened. But I finally got this chapter wrangled into submission and the next one is mostly written, so hopefully we can wrap this up in a timely fashion. 
> 
> WARNINGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: demons, violence, disturbing themes. Please proceed with caution, and if you're worried, a more detailed warning is at the bottom of this chapter.

The Fade is not how Carver remembers it.  

He's been there—what, twice now? The first he barely remembers, but for the bits and pieces he acquired the second time around, and this place doesn't match up with either of them. He wouldn't think it the Fade at all, except that it has the same _feeling_. The same pull in his gut, the sense of wrongness, as if the very the weight of his feet against the ground is circumspect.  

He's wearing what he had on when he stepped through the eluvian: his nice pressed Inquisitor's uniform, sans chain mail, in preparation for the evening's festivities. The _hooray, we won_ party—not the _official_ one that Josephine is now meticulously planning, but the smaller, reflexive night of drinking and revelry that sprung naturally from the day's conquests. He turns his mind inward, concentrating, and when he looks down at himself he's wearing his old Templar armor as it had been the day he left Kirkwall, battered and stained with smoke. He'd dumped it over the side of the ship first chance he got. He scowls and tries again, but his Inquisition-issue armor is less familiar to him, rides less comfortably on his shoulders. This stuff is old, maybe, but he wore it for nearly a decade and his body knows the cuirass and gambeson like an old friend.  

Perhaps it's fitting, anyway—it looks as though he's standing at the entrance to a Circle. Not any Ferelden or Marcher Circle that he's ever seen, but Skyhold's very own Tower. But there's something... not quite right. For one thing it stands alone, no Skyhold to cradle her and make her safe against the elements. There are no banners or Inquisition markers anywhere, and there's a distinct air of disrepair to the entire structure: it lists slightly, like a beast squatting heavy on its haunches, and the windows gape like broken teeth, black and crumbling at their sills.  

Carver takes a deep breath and reaches back, feeling for the hilt of his claymore. The weight at his back is a comfort that gives him the gumption to step up to the door and let himself inside.  

He takes one step and the floor gives way beneath his feet—he doesn't even have enough time to grab for the lintel before he's falling, down into the black. He tries to scream, mouth open, but before he can figure out how, he hits the ground. Hard. His teeth are rattled in his skull and his bones ache, but when he lifts himself slowly onto hands and knees and then to his feet, patting himself down, he’s still in one piece.

“Bloody Fade,” he whispers, though his attempt at courage falls flat. He can admit it—he’s terrified. He hates the Fade nearly as much as Bull does, but he’s had to hide it where Bull can be brash and loud about his fears. He isn’t a mage, and never has been—that was Bethany’s world, not his. She had been the brave one of the two of them. This would have been a walk in the park for her.

And yet here he is, not she, walking into this awful place of his own volition. He wipes sweat from his face with the back of his gauntlet and walks forward into the dark.

“Hello? Who’s there?”

A small, young voice, not one he recognizes. The tones are honey-golden and sticky with a familiar accent, and it occurs to him that the speaker is using Tevene. He doesn’t know what strange magics allow him to understand it, but he doesn’t care—he draws his sword and grips the hilt like a lifeline as he looks around for its owner.

“Hello?” _Hello? ...lo? ...lo? ...o?_

Echoing. It sounds like a child’s voice, but there’s something off about it. When the little boy steps out of the shadows, slim and dark with huge, black eyes, he twitches, and feels more apt to strike him down than open his arms in comfort. “Felix?” he asks cautiously.

“Yes.” He’s so tiny and frail, too small for the rich, opulent fabrics that swathe his tender frame, the rubies that drip from his fingers and throat. He comes right up to Carver, unafraid in spite of the quaver in his voice, and only stops when Carver takes a step back to keep him from getting too close. “Can you help me?” he chirps teeth very white against his skin when he smiles. “Please, I’m lost.”

“Are you?” Carver doesn’t lower his blade. If the boy only took three steps forward he would impale himself on it. Part of Carver wants him to, just to see whether he would cry and bleed like a human boy. A large part of him suspects he wouldn’t.

“So very lost. I’ve been wandering here for ages and ages.” He sniffles, dark eyes filling with liquid as if on command. But Carver knows what crocodile tears look like—he perfected the technique as a boy whenever his brother annoyed him and he wanted retribution by running and whinging to his mother. So he lets his sword fall, a little, though he still holds it ready against his side, and he turns his head to look at the child out of the corner of his eye.

It’s an old Templar trick that Emeric had taught him, back in Kirkwall. Demons are good at mimicry, but their replications are never perfect, tearing and smudging at the edges of reality where they can’t quite mask the _wrongness_ of their manifestation. And even though this is the Fade, a demon’s natural territory, he can still see, out of the corner of his eye, the twist and curl of smoke under the little boy’s skin, the dark tearing of the weft that makes up his ethereal form.

It hurts him to do it, but he brings the sword down hard, cleaving the demon in twain. The worst part is the immediate aftermath—the demon screams with an unearthly shriek and crumbles into pieces, leaving behind scraps of flesh and bone that linger in Carver’s mind’s eye even when they dissipate in smoke.

His belly sours, but he holds the bile down, turning away from the scene and closing his eyes until the nausea fades. He swallows and sheaths his sword, mysteriously free of blood. Time to press on.

The empty hollow of the gutted Tower narrows into a hall, and then a curling stair, winding down, down like a spine through the center of the structure. It no longer resembles any building that Carver has ever seen. The walls are stone and crawling with damp—he passes the occasional torch sconce, but they are either empty or dead, blackened and crumbling and rotted. The only light that illuminates his path is the faint, eerie light that clings inherently to the Fade, a sour green color that never quite disappears regardless of the landscape.

He hears the rustling before he comes upon its source. He grips his hilt more firmly and makes the next turn to find himself in a new room, crammed floor to ceiling with shelves overflowing with books and scrolls of every description. Overhead, scraps of paper fly like flocks of birds, all the way up to a shadowy ceiling that Carver cannot see. And in the center, sat cross-legged on the floor, is a young man bent over a book, poring over it as if it contains all the secrets of the universe. Yet Carver can see, even from here, that the pages are blanket of words or pictures.

It’s Felix, of course. He’s dressed far more humbly than the demon who was wearing his boyhood form, a plain silk shirt in midnight blue and matching blue trousers, loose-fitting like those worn by the men of Rivain and Par Vollen. His hair is longer than Carver remembers it, too, combed back into a coarse, tight braid that hangs down his back and is woven with blue ribbon.

Felix—or the demon who _looks_ like Felix—does not notice him when he approaches, and Carver stops a few paces away, wondering. It _must_ be a demon, but it’s far cleverer than the last, and he fears that his sword alone will not be enough to defeat it.

“Good reading?” he asks at last, and Felix startles so believably he almost feels bad for keeping his sword out. _Don’t fall for it. It wants you to relax. Keep your guard up, Templar._

“Oh. Hello, I didn’t realize anyone else was here.” Felix sits up straight, assuming a vaguely polite expression, as if for a stranger. “Did you need something? My father is in his study, if you were looking for him?”

“I… was looking for you, actually,” Carver says carefully. _Just strike it down_ , says the Templar in his head, but something stays his hand. Felix looks so young and vulnerable, not in the way of the child, but in the way that a young man is on the cusp of full adulthood. He is bookish, adorably so, and even though he knows that this Felix isn’t the real thing, it’s hard to convince his body to obey the commands of his mind.

“You were?” Felix asks. He blinks, adorably confused, and slides the book shut. The pages are slightly yellowed at the edges, layered together in a jumble as if threatening to collapse from the binding, and he holds it protectively against his chest like a child with a toy. “I… who are you?”

“My name is Carver Hawke,” Carver says. His tongue feels leaden in his mouth, and his words are not altogether his own.

Felix’s eyes light up, bright and glowing with sudden recognition. “Oh! Of course, I know you.” He smiles, and there’s something unpleasant about it that Carver can’t quite place.

 _You idiot,_ he rails, _you’ve given it your name_. He takes a step backward as Felix gets to his feet, palms sweaty in his gloves.

“That sword looks awfully heavy. Won’t you let me take it for you? I can put it over here, and you can rest a little while.” Felix holds his hands out, palm up. He looks so earnest, and Carver feels so weary, as if his armor weighs too much—he’s carried this sword for years in service to the Maker, and yet suddenly it feels as if he’s a raw recruit again, picking up a new claymore for the first time. It’s very, very tempting, Felix’s offer. _Just set it aside for a moment. Just to rest_.

The flat of the naked blade has very nearly touched Felix’s welcome hands when Carver comes back to himself. He jerks back, choking, and though it hurts his limbs like fire, he turns his sword and holds it out with the edge resting against Felix’s slender neck.

“Not another word, demon. I command it.”

Felix laughs, bright and shrill, not like him at all. Not the way Carver always imagined he would laugh. “You _command_ it? And who are you to command me? I smell it on you, you know—the craving. How long has it been since your last dose of lyrium? Months? Almost a year? And every day you’re closer to breaking.” His voice drops low and he steps forward, eyes burning strangely. The flagstones under Carver’s feet grow hot to the touch, working its way up through his boots and his greaves to scorch the bottoms of his feet, but he is rooted to the spot, sweating and paralyzed with fear.

“Get away from me,” he whispers pathetically. The demon bares its pointed teeth, unimpressed.

“I know the things you dream of, _Carver Hawke_. I know your nightmares.” It cocks its head, snakelike, and his blade moves with it, scraping the faintest red line into his skin. It doesn’t seem to notice. “I know the things you _fear_.”

Somehow, that’s the thing that breaks his paralysis. Although his knees have turned to water, Carver growls and holds his ground. “Right. What are you then, the demon of stage fright? The demon of cold feet the night before a handfasting? I faced down the Nightmare and survived—I’ve killed a hundred terrors and not batted an eye. What have you got that they didn’t, except a face that isn’t yours?”

In a surge of boldness, he steps forward and closes his gauntleted hand around the demon’s throat. It’s soft and vulnerable beneath his grip, and he squeezes, ignoring the cold trickle of fear in the back of his mind as he watches Felix’s eyes widen and his mouth gape like a fish’s when it’s caught up by the tide and thrown ashore.

“Right. Nothing to say to that, have you?” He drags the tip of his sword down, drawing a line in the slippery silken tunic, and catches the point up under the demon’s borrowed diaphragm. “That’s what I thought.” And he drives the sword deep.

There’s blood, this time—a lot of it. It gushes hot over his hand, seeping through the cracks in his armor and the seams of his leather glove, pooling at his feet and hissing when it hits the ground. Felix’s body drains quickly, turning his skin ashen, and his cheeks grow dark and hollow like a brittle shell until there’s nothing left and his form collapses into dust.

“Maker,” Carver whispers when it’s over, closing his eyes. “Give me strength.”

There’s no response that he can hear, but he feels a little better. And when he opens his eyes and looks up, a small window has formed high in the wall of the library, allowing a single, piercing ray of sunlight to lance down like the shaft of a gilded arrow. The blood is still there when he looks down again, but he is able to divorce it from Felix’s body in his mind, and he wipes it off as best he can before sheathing his sword and girding himself to continue on.

After that it gets easier. He has a little bit of Templar left in him, even without the lyrium, and he uses it to forge a path through the moldering ruins. Not every demon takes the form of Felix, but many do, all of them wearing versions of him that he has never seen. And he learns to recognize it right away, the wrongness, like a whiff of rotten flesh on the breeze. They’re never _him_ , never _his Felix_ , the friendly spirit that forges his signature and touches him the way a lover does, intimate, trembling.

The only time he slips is when the demon wears Felix’s bare skin draped in silk and empty promises. It whispers things into his ear, soft things, things he’s dreamed of and ached for late at night when even the cold presence of his ghostly friend isn’t enough to soothe his troubled sleep.

“I want you,” not-Felix breathes against his cheek, twisting around him as though his armor is no hindrance to the seductive dance he weaves. “I know you want me, too.”

Carver wavers. He’s so tired. The tunnels are endless, the stairs winding ever down and down into the dark, and whenever he thinks of having to return the way he came, he gets a sick feeling in his stomach. It would be easier, wouldn’t it, just to stay here? Perhaps the demon will devour him, but perhaps not. Perhaps they could play pretend, and he would never have to bear the impossible weight of the name _Inquisitor_ ever again.

But then he remembers the reason he’s here in the first place, unearthing the _real_ Felix from all this blighted grave-dirt of a Fade-castle, and it’s easy to plunge his sword into the demon’s chest without regret.

After that, quite suddenly, the stairs end. He looks around, leaning on his sword—not a good habit to get into, but this is the Fade, and he’s in no danger of blunting his weaponry here without his say-so. The only feature of note in the room is a set of bars in the wall, about the size of a window. And beyond, a little light. Carver limps to the wall and peers through.

Beyond he sees a tiny cell. There is a lantern sitting in the middle of it, right on the floor, and though the wick has burned down to nearly nothing it doesn’t look to be in danger of blowing out. There’s a few books stacked in the corner with a child-sized abacus sitting on top, and a cot laid against the wall. And sitting on the cot…

“Felix.”

At the hoarse sound of his voice, Felix’s head comes up sharply as if startled from slumber. Carver doesn’t even have to ask—he knows. He knows that this is the real thing. He looks achingly tired, with dark smudges under his eyes and hollow cheeks darkened with stubble, and his shirt is even mustier and more worn than Carver remembers seeing it before, hanging off his sallow frame like a sheet. His feet, too, are sadly bare, black around the toes with dirt, skinny ankles exposed by the threadbare fringes of his trousers.

“You… Carver?” Felix whispers, sounding even rustier at speech than Carver. He squints at him through the dim light, silent for a long, long moment, and then he scrambles to his feet and comes to the bars, tripping over the lantern—it falls over with a loud clatter but it doesn’t go out, casting its weak yellow light against the walls in a new, iridescent pattern as it rolls and comes to a guttering stop against the wall. “What are you doing here? I don’t understand.”

“I told you I would come, didn’t I?” He wants to weep with relief as he clutches the bars, fingers overlapping with Felix’s. They feel like brittle bones to his touch, but they’re warm and alive, and it’s enough. “Do you remember? Anything at all?”

“I… I remember you. Your voice, the feel of your skin, I—” He stops, blushing, face creased with confusion. “But how? How are you—that was just a dream.”

“No, Felix, it was real. _This_ is the dream. You’re alive, don’t you realize?”

His face shutters, and it almost seems as if the narrow barred window shrinks a little. “You’ve said that before. I wish you would stop.”

“Why? Don’t you want to come back to real life? Aren’t you tired of the Fade?”

“The Fade is where I belong,” Felix says, his voice sounding very far away. “It’s where lost souls go when their bodies die.”

“But you _aren’t_ dead. I don’t know how, but you got here without dying. Solas and Dorian think it’s something to do with red lyrium—I don’t understand any of it, I’m not a mage, but—”

“Dorian? Dorian is…”

“Alive,” Carver says, firmly.

“They told me… they told me he was dead.” He squints into the middle distance, head cocked as if trying to catch the sound of something he can barely hear. “But he… isn’t. I was _in_ him. Maker, he let me…” He stops and blushes again, bright red, as he looks at Carver from the corner of his eye. “I was… _you_ …”

“Er—yeah.” Carver ducks his head, remembering very clearly the feeling of Felix’s spirit inside his body, sharing that space, intimate. He wonders how Felix remembers i, if he remembers at all. “You aren’t dead, Felix. Neither is Dorian, and neither is your father. I don’t know who _they_ are, or what they told you—”

“Venatori,” Felix says, suddenly and clearly, as if recalling a memory long buried. “When they took Father away, I stayed, I hid—there were so many of us, in the sewers, in the woods, hiding in basements and…” He shudders, wiping a hand across his mouth. His nose has started to bleed, just a little, and the gesture wipes it across his cheek like the garish extension of a smile. “All those mages, no home, no family. The lucky ones were killed trying to escape. The Venatori, they were... merciless. Anyone who wouldn’t bow, they slaughtered.” He opens his eyes are they are dark with memories and pain. “They were helpless. How can you do such things to your mages? Lock them up, hide them away—they were good at hiding, but they could hardly fend for themselves, like sheep without a shepherd. How…”

“Felix.” Carver cleaves his tirade in two, though it hurts him to do it, and he grabs Felix’s fingers through the bars. “It’s over. You _know_ it’s over. We have the Tower, they are free to come and go and learn, just like you wanted. Just like you told me. Do you remember?”

“Teach them,” Felix whispers. “Yes. It… it was the only thing I could think, for a long time. If only someone had _taught_ them how to use their power properly, how to live and work and think for themselves…” He shakes his head as if dispelling unwanted thoughts. “It was Fiona’s greatest agony.”

“Grand Enchanter Fiona?”

The wall quivers, and Carver nearly rears back from a bit of masonry that falls a handspan from his boot. He looks up, up, but can see no ceiling, only the crumbling wall disappearing into shadow. “She was there?”

“She was there. They found her, eventually, of course. They found both of us. They fed her lyrium—but it wasn’t like normal lyrium, it was _red_ , blood red, and humming and twisting even when it was inside her. I could see how much it hurt, even when she tried to hide it.” He gulps, and shivers when Carver touches the side of his face. “I don’t want to remember,” he whispers, eyes shut tight. “I don’t want to go back there.”

“You don’t have to, Fee. It’s over. Corypheus—the Elder One is dead, and all his armies.”

“Truly?”

“Truly. Andraste as my witness, Fee.” Carver leans his head against the bars. “Will you come with me?”

“I don’t know how,” Felix whispers. “I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“That I… that I’ll be here forever. That if I go back, this will all have been a dream and I’ll be back _there_. In that cell, with...” He leans his head against the bars, too, and they’re so close Carver can see the freckles flecking his skin, the spiderweb-lace of his eyelashes. “What if you’re wrong? What if I really am dead?”

“Then what have you got to lose?” Carver asks, more jovial than he feels. “Either you come back with me, or your soul moves on to wherever souls go for their eternal rest. There is no other option. You can’t stay here forever, Fee. Your soul wasn’t meant to be held in a cage.”

Felix shuts his eyes, the slightest smile curling at the corner of his mouth. The bars feel fragile under Carver’s hands, more like porcelain than steel, and he fancies the window has grown a little wider. “There’s just… one more thing.”

“What?”

“I… have the Blight, Carver. I haven’t felt it stirring in ages, since I—well, since I came to this place. I thought I had died of it, but now… I’m not so sure. Everything is so muddled and mixed up in my head, I…” He shakes his head, eyes squinted shut, and he groans in frustration.

“We can try to figure out what happened once we get you out of here, okay? And I _will_ get you out. Whatever it takes.” He grips Felix’s fingers through the bars, now semi-translucent, apt to shatter at the slightest touch. “Getting down here wasn’t easy, but I managed, and I’ll get us out again. I swear it.”

“I believe you,” Felix says, smiling a little wider. Carver can scarcely see the bars anymore, and he could almost reach his entire upper body through the gap in the wall, if he wanted.

“Good. Concentrate on that. Remember it.” He cups Felix’s chin unhindered, moving carefully with his gauntlets. “I’ve got you.”

Behind Felix, the lantern is still tipped over on its side. Golden light spills across the floor and splashed against the wall in fragmented pieces, shimmering. Carver draws close and brushes a kiss to Felix’s brow. It’s warm beneath his lips, gritty with the dust and grime of his cell, and when he draws back everything has changed.

They’re no longer in a cell. Instead they stand at the back of a cathedral, broken-down and gloomy with abandonment, the pews rotted away and the pulpit no more than decimated stone. The nave walls are half-collapsed like broken wings encircling them, and all of Felix’s books and the abacus and the cot have disappeared. The Redcliffe Chantry, he realizes, gutted and nearly unrecognizable. The only thing remaining is the lantern, still flickering steadily. It’s bright beams refract against the stone as if it were stained-glass instead of granite, wavering in a long, upright shape not unlike a window, or a mirror. Carver’s breath catches in his chest. _The eluvian._

Felix wavers suddenly, as if he’s about to stumble, and Carver scoops him up into his arms as his legs give out beneath him. He looks so pale, ashen beneath the sun-kissed color of his Tevinter skin, and when his fingers curl into the top of Carver’s shirt they look as delicate and breakable as bird bones.

Carver looks down at himself. His sword is gone, and his armor, replaced with the finery he’d been wearing when he first walked into the Fade—only now it’s tattered and caked with blood and grit, as if he’d dragged it through a war instead of just worn it to a few salons under Vivienne’s watchful eye. _Armor indeed_ , he thinks, a little bit impressed with himself.

“Carver,” Felix whispers, looking up at him from where his head rests heavy on his shoulder. “I’m tired.”

“Me too,” Carver says. He tightens his grip on him, relieved when he doesn’t melt away. “Come on, then. Let’s go home.” He lifts his chin with more certainty than he feels, and walks through the lantern-light and into the beyond.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Carver does battle with a demon disguised as a child-aged Felix. No actual children are harmed in this story, but be aware that it might be a little disturbing.


	8. consumed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Felix finds his feet in the real world.

After the Fade, the real world is a blur. Carver falls to his knees on the flagstone floor and there are people there, speaking and whispering and crying out, smothering him with noise. He curls around Felix instinctively, trying to protect him—he’s so limp in his arms, head lolling on his neck, eyes half-shut and unfocused, so blank that Carver would fear him dead but for the spasmodic clutch of his fingers on his sleeve.

“Get back!” someone says very close to his ear, and he flinches away from the coarse grate of it against his skin. “Everyone get back, give them room to breathe.”

It’s Cassandra, he recognizes distantly. He breathes deeply and tries to gather himself, and when he finally looks up it’s to find Cassandra and Dorian crouched nearby, Cullen hovering in the background with Morrigan. Cassandra sighs with relief when he meets her eyes and reaches out to clasp his shoulder.

“Are you alright? Maker, Hawke, that was incredibly foolish of you.”

“I had to do it,” he croaks. “Felix…”

“He needs a healer,” Dorian says. He’s got his fingers around his friend’s wrist, feeling his pulse, and his expression is grim and drawn. “You have to let him go, Inquisitor.”

“I can carry—”

“Don’t be stupid,” the mage snaps. “You can’t even _stand_. Give him to me, he’s a featherweight. I can take him.”

It takes great effort, but he manages to release his hold on Felix. Releasing Felix’s hold on _him_ is more difficult. And when Dorian has him in his arms, cradled close against his chest like a child, his eyes flutter open and he struggles weakly, reaching—Carver captures his seeking fingers and kisses the back, not caring what anyone thinks of the tender gesture.

“It’s going to be alright,” he whispers, and Felix quiets. “Take him,” he says to Dorian, and he sits back on his heels and tries not to weep when Felix is borne away, feeling as if some vital part of him has been ripped out.

“You ought to see a healer as well, Inquisitor,” Cassandra says quietly. She’s still got a hand on his shoulder, and he catches himself leaning into it, needing the support.

“No. I’m all right. I just need to lie down.”

“If you say so.” She looks dubious, but between her and Cullen he finds himself boosted up and half-carried through the great hall under the curious stares of a hundred revelers, and up the stairs to his quarters. Cassandra divests him of his ruined clothing while Cullen stands nearby and makes irritated noises about _propriety_ , but he’s too tired to care—he falls against the pillows in nothing but his smalls and is asleep in an instant.

He doesn’t dream, for a wonder. Perhaps the Fade has had enough of him. When he wakes it’s the very early hours of the morning, and Cassandra is sitting on his couch reading. He stirs, and she checks his breath and pulse and bids him go back to sleep. So he does.

When he wakes again, she’s gone, and there’s a little note on his bedside table written in her neat, looping hand: _Felix is well. Go back to sleep._

But he’s slept enough for ten men, he reckons—he feels properly like himself, if a bit grimy, but a quick sponge bath and a change of clothes take care of that. Then he heads immediately for the infirmary.

He isn’t sure what he’s expecting when he enters, but it’s not this: Felix awake and aware and _laughing_ , likely at something Dorian has just said, as Dorian is sitting next to his bed and grinning smugly in that way he does when he knows he’s being clever. Felix turns to look at him as he comes in, and his breath catches a little in his chest—he’s never seen him like this, he realizes. Hale. Whole. _Smiling_. And staring at Carver with wide, lively eyes, mouth slightly ajar with something like… awe?

Dorian follows the path of his gaze and nods to him. “Inquisitor. Took you long enough to show up.”

“I was sleeping,” he explains awkwardly, coming further into the room. The handful of other patients in the infirmary are asleep, so he walks gingerly to the foot of the bed where Felix.

There’s a moment of silence and then Felix blurts out, "You're bigger than I thought you'd be.”

Carver blinks. "I'm sorry?"

"Oh! Maker, did I offend you? I'm sorry, I didn't mean—" He covers his mouth with his hands, eyes wide and liquid with apology.  

"He's been doing that," Dorian says, cheerful as a summer morning. "He can't seem to stop himself from saying whatever bloody thing comes into his head."

"I'm so sorry," Felix whispers again, though his hands still hover near his mouth as if preparing to stifle himself at a moment's notice.  

"It's okay. It's fine, don't worry about it." Carver is trying not to stare, but it's difficult. Up close, Felix is like a small sun, burning with energy and verve that makes it hard to look away. He bears a passing resemblance to the spirit that’s been haunting him for the past year, but only in his features—everything else is so different as to be almost unrecognizable. For one thing, he's very... _solid_. The blankets are pulled up around his waist and folded back neatly, his nightshirt is soft and clean and filled out very nicely by his chest and shoulders, and the pillow is dented from the weight of his head against it.

A glow of health and vitality lingers about him in spite of the slight veining under his eyes and around his nose—lingering evidence of the Blight, although the Fade has apparently burned that out of him. The healers could find no trace of it, though they tried. One small mercy among dozens. And his eyes are so dark, darker than he imagined they would be, framed by the longest lashes he's ever seen on a man. He'd had a thick layer of stubble on his face when they staggered out of the Fade, but someone has given him a proper shave and trimmed his hair, and he looks... _refined_. Carver feels inordinately clumsy just standing over him, and he suddenly has no idea what to do with his hands.  

"Well," Dorian says, breaking the awkward silence with a gentle clap that nonetheless sounds like thunder. "I'll just leave you two alone to... catch up, shall I?"

He pats Carver on the shoulder as he leaves, and Carver lowers himself to the vacant seat, glancing at Felix from the corner of his eye. "Are you, um, feeling better?"

"I'm feeling..." He pauses and frowns at his hands as if rethinking his words. "Better. Yes. I'm not used to—well, anything, really. Speaking. Eating. Pissing. Oh!" He slaps a hand over his mouth in dismay. "I'm so sorry. I can't seem to help myself."

"I guess being alone for so long will do that. No one to talk to in the Fade, really."

"True. I mean, I spoke to _you_ all the time, but that was... different."

"You spoke to me?" Carver echoes, incredulous. "Why did I never hear you?"

Felix shrugs melancholically. "Well it was all in my head, wasn't it? Whenever I... appeared to you, in the real world, that was my unconscious self—all my emotion, fears and hopes and wishes, not the _logical_ part of me. Like a wisp of a daydream."

"But it _was_ you, wasn't it?" Carver asks. "It wasn't just a Fade spirit wearing your face?"

"No, it was me. It was the... essence of me. That's how Dorian explained it, anyway."

"And how would _you_ explain it, if you could?"

Felix chews on his lip for a little while, eyes turned inward. His long fingers pluck idly at the coverlet, as if reveling in the texture, and it occurs to Carver that he hasn't really _felt_ anything that wasn't conjured by his own mind in... months. Nearly a year. He must be starving for interaction, and here Carver is sitting like a lump without anything properly interesting to talk about.  

"It was almost like a dream," Felix says suddenly. "I mean, you can't _sleep_ in the Fade, but I would... sort of drift, sometimes. Like I was following a bright light down a long, long tunnel. And I could never quite find it, but I could get close."

"The sun. I—you said I was—like the sun," Carver stammers, flushing. _Could you be any more self-centered?_ But—

"Yes! Exactly!" Felix starts to sit up from his pillow, but subsides with a grimace when Carver presses his shoulder back down.  

"You shouldn't be straining yourself. Your body isn't used to the real world, yet."

"Don’t know how I’m supposed to _get_ used to it if I’m not allowed to lift so much as a finger," Felix mutters, but he lays back down without any further argument. He looks at Carver for a little while without speaking, his mouth soft and fond; Carver remembers belatedly that he has tried to kiss that mouth, and that that mouth has kissed _him_ , in a... variety of places. He blushes and looks away.  

"What do you think of me, then?" Felix asks softly. "Am I... what you thought I'd be?"

"You are—more." He stops, not entirely sure what he means by that. "Er..."

"No, it’s alright." He smiles beatifically, and Carver feels as if any other answer he could have given would have been wrong. "That's... I like that." And then he holds out his hand. Palm up, fingers curled inward just slightly. His skin is very brown against the white bedclothes—not quite as brown as Dorian, but nearly—and when Carver reaches out and fits their palms together, his skin is soft and warm and _alive_. "I just realized, we haven't really touched one another since you brought me out of the Fade."

Carver hardly dares to breathe. _How much does he remember? How much does he regret?_ "Well, here I am," he says helplessly, and Felix laughs.  

"So you are." He squeezes Carver's hand and makes no move to let go. "So you are."

//

A note left on the Inquisitor’s desk, written in a neat, crisp hand:

_Dorian asked me to write about this, since it’s so difficult for me to speak aloud. I owe you the full story, I know, but this will have to suffice. Maybe someday when the memories don’t weigh so heavily on me… but I can make no promises._

_I told you before about being captured by the Venatori. But before that, when we were still in hiding, Fiona showed me something buried deep in the bowels of Redcliffe castle: an eluvian. I don’t know how she knew it was there, nor did I ask—there was something in her eye which told me not to._

_“We must keep this from the Elder One,” she said, and though I didn’t quite know why, I knew she was right._

_Then we were taken. I try not to think about that night, so you will forgive me for neglecting to speak of it. Suffice to say that we were held by the Venatori, taken in turn to suffer abuses at the Elder One’s hand. Please, please do not speak of this to Father. He feels guilty enough as it is. And though it took weeks and weeks, at last there was an opportunity to escape. Me—not Fiona. But I was not intending to run without first fulfilling Fiona’s last coherent request of me._

_I found the eluvian. I meant to destroy it. But I had been followed, and there was no other escape—and I had no intention of being recaptured, turned into one of those horrible red monstrosities, though they had already tried. The Blight had protected me from that much, at least._

_So I went through the eluvian, and then I shattered it. And everything was very dark for a long time. I thought I had died in the explosion—I has used the very little mana I possessed to do it, and I was so drained I barely felt human._

_Now I know that I was in the Fade. But the other parts—the cell, the books, the abacus—came later, as I wandered the barrier between this world and the next, formless. And found_ _you_ _. It was the Mark that drew me to you, I see now. And I am so grateful for it. You were the tether that tied me to the real world, that kept me from succumbing and letting the Fade absorb me entirely._

_I owe you more than I can express. Whatever I can give, Inquisitor, it is yours._

_~Felix_

//

Carver manages to hold off the celebrations for two days until Josie finally has her way. He is stiff and uncomfortable, of course, constantly turning his neck from side to side to ward off the pinchiness of his collar as he smiles hollowly and shakes hands with a hundred nobles he's never met or heard of. Nor does he care to. That Josie's purview, and she's good at it. _He_ feels like a Satinalia ham dressed in too many ribbons. But the alcohol is flowing the war is over, so he tries not to sulk too visibly, an endeavor made even more difficult by the throng of people pressing in from all sides to talk at him.

But not all is lost. His patience is being sorely tested by the endless prattling of some wealthy Orlesian landowner when there's a soft tap on his shoulder. He excuses himself and turns away, hardly breaking the man's flow, and is startled in the best way to find Felix standing there.

"Are you supposed to be out of bed?" he finds himself asking, though Felix hardly looks like a bedridden waif. Someone—probably Leliana—has found him some nice robes in the Tevinter fashion, and he gleams like a dark, subtle jewel against the brilliant colors of his mishmash court. He's even got a little gold hoop gleaming beneath his nose. And he smells fantastic, like spices and woodsmoke. Felix catches his arm and pulls him toward the open floor where a few members of the Inquisition—their limbs loosened with plentiful drink—are making a go at dancing.  

"I'm fine. I feel wonderful. And you ought to be dancing, Inquisitor. You are the man of the hour, are you not?"

"I feel like the prize cow of the hour," Carver mutters, though he allows Felix to maneuver him into an open space in which to sway together. “And I don’t dance.”

“Don’t? Or can’t?” Felix teases.

“Both,” he says, but it’s half-hearted. Felix has the incredible gift of dancing without really _dancing_ —they move in a loose, nebulous circle, and Carver somehow is able to follow without falling over his feet. “But for you I’ll make an exception.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He beams up at him, and Carver’s heart flutters in his chest. Maker, but he’s beautiful.

Silence falls between them then, but it’s not the uncomfortable kind. The music is lilting and a bit raucous, enough that he doesn’t feel pressure to hold himself a certain way or carry their dance with any sort of dignity. It’s… _fun_ , he realizes with a small degree of horror. Felix sees the look on his face and laughs.

“Are you alright? You look as though you’ve swallowed something unpleasant.”

“I haven’t swallowed a bloody thing since I got here,” he says, aggrieved, and is only a little sad to leave the dance floor when Felix drags him over to the buffet table for sustenance.

He must be a good-luck charm, because Carver remains unmolested for as long as it takes to stuff his face with little pastry puffs and a selection of nice cheeses. Felix nibbles on a pastry of his own and scans the crowd like his own personal bodyguard, and when it seems as if a handful of nobles are gearing up for another go at arse-kissing, he whisks Carver away through a side door and into the deserted rotunda.

“Maker’s breath,” Carver sighs as the door closes firmly behind them, cutting off the dull roar of revelry. His ears are ringing from the noise, and he rubs them furiously to quell it. “You’re a bit magic, you know that?”

Felix laughs and draws his hands away from his head, smoothing down the hair he’d ruffled out of place. “Not nearly magic enough, in fact. But it’s sweet of you to say so. Are you holding out all right?”

“Thanks to you,” Carver says frankly. “A pity we didn’t have the foresight to grab one of those fancy trays out there, we could have had a private feast.”

Felix’s answering chortle is like a clear bell in the quiet room. “We could still go back.”

“No! I mean—maybe in a little while. I just… need a break. Do you mind?”

“Mind? Of course not.” He is still standing quite close, hands folded behind his back, but somehow it doesn’t make their proximity feel any less intimate. “I suppose we’ll just have to find… other ways to pass the time.”

“I… sorry?”

“Don’t look so startled, my dear,” Felix says lightly. His eyes drag across the breadth of Carver’s chest like a physical touch, and his dress uniform suddenly feels claustrophobic. “It’s not as if it would be the first time.”

Carver is frozen against the wall. The smile on his face is something he's never seen before—playful, a little bit mischievous, like the memory of a touch on the inside of his thigh and kiss to his forehead. He takes a deep breath. "But you—I mean, I thought maybe that you didn't—remember, exactly."

"I remember," Felix says softly. "Everything. Well—not in perfect detail. I don't remember how you taste, which is frankly... criminal." His dark eyes are focused on Carver's lips, and Carver can't remember the last time he was able to draw a full breath. "But I remember the _feeling_ of it, the emotion—it was incredible, to feel that, from my prison. A few blissful minutes of freedom. And the way you looked at me, it lit me up from the inside. I felt... _alive_."

Carver stares at the floor, else he might break and reach out for him, and then he would be lost. "It—I thought, well, I had sort of... taken advantage..."

"Are you worried about consent, my dear?" Felix moves a little closer, still smiling, but it's a gentler thing, now, as sincere as they way he reaches out to smooth the front of Carver's jacket. It had gotten a bit rumpled with all the dancing. When the fabric lays flat again, he doesn't move his hand away, and Carver doesn't ask him to. "You were the one thing that kept me from losing my mind in there. You have nothing to worry about."

"I just want you to be happy," he blurts. "I mean—you're, you're _here_ now, alive and well, and you could have anyone you wished—"

"And is it so impossible that I might want _you_?" Felix inquires.  

"Improbable," Carver returns stubbornly. "I'm a difficult man to get on with."

"And I'm a difficult ghost."

He snorts with laughter despite himself, and Felix's smile deepens, deep enough that dimples spring up in his freshly-shaven cheeks. Carver reaches out on instinct—and when Felix only leans a little closer, he touches one, tracing the curve of his cheek until it softens and Felix's lips part on a heady exhale.  

Carver's chest squeezes and lets go. "Fee..."

"Yes?" He's standing quite close now, close enough that their boots nudge together on the floor and the spicy-sweet-earth smell of him is thick and cloying in Carver's nostrils. No ghost, but a man, alive and breathing... and wanting. Carver wets his lips, hand still cupping his cheek, and leans forward to kiss him.  

Felix's lips are dry and warm, and up close his skin smells like cloves and lemon verbena. Carver nudges closer until his nose fits snugly against his cheek, until their mouths are fused together and Felix's narrow chest presses him back into the wall. When Felix hums, he feels the vibration in the back of his teeth. Then Felix finds his hands, hanging useless by his sides, and puts them on his hips and he is _solid_ , rangy and lean beneath his clothes, and so, so warm, living flesh glowing with the heat of a northern sun. Carver groans and wraps his arms around him fully, and Felix settles against him with a little sound of contentment as their lips move and part and come together again, wetter than before.  

Carver thinks of himself as a decent kisser, but Felix is bloody _brilliant_. He knows where and when to use his tongue—less than some of the Orlesians Carver has bedded over the years, but more than the clumsy Ferelden soldiers of his youth—and he knows how to use his entire body to supplement the dance of their mouths, hips nudging close, fingernails tracking lightly over his nape and into his hair in slow, dizzying spirals. Carver isn't usually one for sticking his tongue down someone's throat, but Felix melts him like candy in the sun and soon they're hardly kissing at all, mouths open, breath harsh and uneven in the small corridor as Felix sucks on his lower lip and Carver curls their tongues together, slow like molasses and sweeter than a hive full of honey. He tastes like spiced wine and the little tea-cakes Josie insists on serving at every function, and the wet sound of their kisses stokes a blaze deep in Carver's breast.

Felix is lapping softly at his tongue and Carver has one hand on his arse underneath his tunic when the door bangs open without preamble. Carver cracks his head against the stone wall so hard he sees stars.

"Bloody— _ow_!"

"Forgive me, Inquisitor," comes a very familiar voice, dry and cold as the frozen tundra of the southern wastes. "Felix."

"Dorian.” Felix steps back a little, but his body heat still clings to him as Carver rubs the back of his sore head. "Did you need something?"

"Not as such. I noticed you had disappeared from the festivities and became concerned." His eyes linger on Carver, narrowed with distrust, and it conjures a sour taste in the back of Carver's mouth—Dorian has never looked at him that way before. "Are you alright?"

Felix makes a little incredulous sound. "Dorian, what on earth...?"

"I apologize for my candor," Dorian says, practically talking right over him, "but you know that you are especially... vulnerable to emotion, since you've returned from the Fade. I only want what's best for you, Felix."

And now Carver's angry. Who was the one who befriended Felix's spirit and earned its trust? Who was the one who entered the Fade physically—not once, but _twice_ —to do battle with the Venatori's pet demons in order to free Felix from his prison? His fists curl in indignation and he stands taller, ready to defend himself, when there comes a soft touch on his arm. He looks down, and Felix's expression undoes him.  

"May I have a moment alone with Dorian to explain?" he asks quietly, but the look in his eyes has already calmed him.  

"Of course," he says, magnanimous as a king, and steps away from the wall. Just to spite Dorian, he curls an arm around Felix's waist and holds him close for one brief, tantalizing moment, brushing a kiss to his hairline before he lets him go. Felix smiles, cheeks pink, and Carver lets himself out into the main hall.  

The festivities are still in full swing, and the noise hits him like a shield bash to the face. The music and laughter, the manic torchlight... he scowls. The lingering self-satisfaction he'd received from the look on Dorian's face as he left dissolves into thin air.  

Before anyone can mark him, he slips along the fringes of the crowd and through the door to his own chambers. As he takes the stairs two at a time, the sound of revelry fades, and he feels himself begin to tire. The memory of Felix's body against his is fresh in his mind, but Dorian's interruption has killed any thought of pursuing it, and by the time he reaches his room and strips off his outer finery, he feels about as horny as a brick.  

With a sigh, he unlatches the door to his favorite balcony and walks out into the cool summer night, letting the alpine air kiss his cheeks and soothe his wounded pride. The very _idea_ that he would take advantage of Felix's vulnerability! As if Felix weren't man enough to decide for himself what he wanted, as if Carver hadn’t been the one to try to dissuade him, conscious of the way the Fade had fucked with Felix's head...

He groans and leans hard against the balcony, dropping his head between his shoulders to loosen the tension in his shoulders. Hopefully no one will notice his absence. He really doesn't feel like going back.

"Come away from there, please."

Carver starts and steps back from the edge. When he turns to the doors, Felix is standing there, twisting his hands together in front of his tunic. "Am I making you nervous? You know it's impossible to fall from here, don't you?"

"So I've been informed. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it."  

With a sigh, Carver stands and come away from the balcony's edge. "So, how did it go? Is it safe to return to the party yet?"

"Is that why you left?" His brows wrinkle together worriedly, and Carver longs to smooth them with a kiss.  

"It was getting to be... a little much. And, you know. Dorian didn't seem too pleased, so I thought I would remove myself for a bit, just to smooth things over."

"Carver, it's _your_ party, you ridiculous man. If anyone should be leaving it's Dorian." Felix wrinkles his nose in irritation and he steps forward, taking both of Carver's hands in his. It seems only natural to draw him in closer, until his arms can go around his waist and Felix's smile is within smooching distance. "But then again, now we won't be so easily interrupted..."

Carver brushes their lips together and is rewarded with a sigh of pleasure. "You've discovered my wicked plan," he says against his mouth, and he can feel the curve of Felix's smile so intimately it makes his skin break out into goosebumps.  

"I approve of this plan." He wraps his arms around Carver's neck and presses close. "Don't worry about Dorian, all right? He's just... overprotective."

"Makes sense." Carver doesn't really want to talk about Dorian right now. He fingers the seam of his tunic and nuzzles into the side of his neck with his open mouth. “Are you… hmmm... in a hurry to get back?”

“Not really.” His voice is low and full of laughter. “Are you?”

“Mmmmm… _not really._ ”  

The juncture of Felix’s neck is soft and fragrant, and Felix groans when Carver nibbles there before soothing the skin with a kiss. His hands wander down Carver’s back and twist in the front of his jacket. “Can I…?”

“Yes. Whatever you wish.”  

Warm as live coals, Felix's hands slide beneath his clothes and lay flat against his belly. Carver tightens his core on instinct, conscious of the layer of softness that has crept up on him despite the hard life he has led, but Felix kisses away his self-consciousness.  

“My sun,” he whispers when they part, eyes glittering in the moonlight. He looks like a fairytale bathed in silver, almost ghostlike—but not quite. Carver knows the difference.  

“C’mere,” he says, only a little self-conscious, he leads Felix to the divan. He seems to be vibrating in his skin with excess energy, and when Carver sits on the pristine white cushions, Felix is in his lap in an instant. His hands go to his hips instinctively, seeking stability—Felix groans his approval and grinds their hips together, and his hands in Carver’s hair burn like fire as they pull his head back for a deep kiss.

Carver has forgotten how to be discreet. His hands grope Felix’s arse and thighs where they’re spread wide across his lap, and he welcomes Felix’s tongue inside his mouth when he isn’t busy sucking livid marks into his throat. When Felix cries out and spasms, very nearly on the edge, he growls and tears his nice neat jacket open at the collar. Buttons pop off and go flying, and he would stop to apologize but for Felix’s garbled, “Maker, _yes_ ,” ringing in his ears.

He’s got a solid grip on one arse cheek and a nice pinching rhythm going on one of his nipples when Felix shudders all over, mouth open and completely silent. Carver reaches for the front of his trousers, loose silken things that feel like they’re hardly even there, and there’s a noticeable wet patch in the front. When he rubs the ridge of Felix’s cock through the fabric he sobs aloud, and Carver feels another surge of wetness seep through.

“Fee…?”

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, twitching with the aftershocks in Carver’s arms. “I can’t—I can’t help it, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“Shh, darling, nothing’s wrong with you. Maker, look at you, you gorgeous thing.” He cups Felix’s cheeks between his palms, rosy-red and warm to the touch, and kisses the arch of one browbone. “You’ve been cooped up in the Fade for a year without any kind of physical outlet. Of course your body wants to make up for lost time.”

Felix slumps with relief, or maybe exhaustion, and Carver holds him close rather than grab for his own cock, which is a throbbing, insistent thing trapped inside his trousers. “Don’ stop,” he mumbles against the skin of Carver’s neck, seeming not to care how sweaty and sticky he is.

“I don’t want to hurt you, sweetheart.”

“You couldn’t. You won’t.” Felix tugs limply at the fastenings on his ceremonial jacket and bites a little at his collarbone, sending a bolt of flashfire through him. “Please.”

“At least let’s move to the bed,” he says, trying to take some kind of control over the situation. It’s terrifyingly easy to hoist Felix into his arms and walk the few paces to the bed, where he deposits him gently and strips him of his ruined finery. He fingers one of the torn clasps, shamefaced. “Sorry about that.”

“For what? It’s only clothing.” Sleepy-eyed, he runs one finger beneath the hem of his smallclothes invitingly. “Speaking of which, you should take yours off now. I want to see what you look like naked.”

Only a little bit shy, Carver obeys. He isn’t built like Felix, with slim, pretty angles, or even like Cullen, who for all his warrior’s physique still has a trimness about him that Carver envies. He’s never been vain, but standing up against Felix’s elegant, ethereal beauty, he feels distinctly lacking: built like a barrel, with a wide chest and solid stomach, one shoulder mangled with scars, his feet all gnarled and calloused from a lifetime of walking. Some have called him _striking_ , with his eyes and his stature, but more often he feels invasive, as if he’s forever taking up too much space. The only member of his little circle that can compete with him for pure mass is the Bull, but he doesn’t really count—he’s got more grace than Carver has ever had, more confidence in his size and physicality.

But Felix looks at him now not like a noble to a farm boy, accidentally raised to sainthood through the Maker’s twisted sense of humor—his eyes are hot and his mouth soft, and when he lifts a hand to beckon him down, Carver goes without a trace of hesitation.

Felix hums with approval as they tangle together, not particularly urgent. His hands are soft on Carver’s body, almost worshipful, tracing every scar and mark that seems to glare at Carver accusingly when he looks into the mirror. At first Carver is afraid to touch back, uncertain how oversensitive he might be—but Felix has no such qualms. He spreads himself across Carver’s body like a living sacrifice, _demanding_ touch, demanding homage that Carver is happy to give.

And he is scarred, too, Carver learns as he drags hungry fingers down his spine and back up again. He hasn’t spoken much of his captivity with the Venatori, but he can feel the evidence of it under his hands: the lines of a whip and the pockmarks of a red-hot poker, clear to him as words on a page. He burns with fury to feel them, burns hot enough to weep. But Felix takes his hands and kisses them and tells him _it’s alright, it’s over now_ , as if words alone were enough to erase the innumerable sins that Corypheus had brought upon the world.

“You need to stop thinking,” Felix says into his sweat-soaked hair, reaching down to grip his cock with an implacable hand. “Undress me.”

“I already have,” Carver gasps, though his fingers toy with Felix’s smallclothes, belying his words. They aren’t quite the sort that Carver is used to: in the front they're shaped like a sling, cradling his soft parts in a neat package that's now straining with need, and soaked through where they'd sweated and frotted together on the couch. In the back they're narrow, so narrow they slip between his arse cheeks. Carver follows that seam, getting beneath the fabric to rub gentle circles over his arsehole. The muscle twitches under his fingers and he pauses to cup his thigh. "Is this alright?"

" _Ngh_." Felix tosses his head back, every tendon of his throat exposed, and there's a breathless smile on his face when he says, "The answer is yes. To everything."

"Even so." He rubs his perineum gently, pushing his smalls aside for better access. "If you don't like it, tell me."

"I will." Felix blinks up at him with his dark, serious eyes, and he hooks one leg over Carver's shoulder. It's not an invitation—it's an order. Carver follows the pressure of his thigh and goes down to the mattress until his eyes are level with Felix's crotch, and maybe it's not precisely what he was expecting, but it's what Carver wants. What he's been aching for ever since Felix did the same for him.  

"Both legs on my shoulders, sweetheart," he says, and when Felix has maneuvered himself to his content, he pulls the thong of his smalls to one side and buries his mouth between his thighs.  

" _Oh!_ Carver, you... _Maker_ ." Felix has no more words. He grips Carver's hair with one hand and with the other he smothers his cries as Carver laves broad strokes behind his balls and down, down to the heat and core of him. His skin is smooth and hairless— _strange Tevinter customs_ , Carver muses—and the slide of his mouth is easy and slow as he kisses his most intimate parts. Then up, sucking his bollocks into his mouth one at a time, and then the root of his cock, dragging the flat of his tongue up to suckle the slippery head.  

"Fuck," Felix gasps when he finally pulls off, both of them red in the face. Carver wipes the saliva off his face and grins when Felix drags him down to kiss him silly.  

"Such language," Carver murmurs when he's finally released. Leaning all his weight on one hand, he fondles his arse with the other, getting his thumb between his cheeks to feel the wetness he'd left behind. "Dirty boy."

"You're ridiculous," Felix huffs, but his blush deepens and he widens his thighs invitingly.

"And you're gorgeous." He tests the give of his body a moment or two, going slow, and gradually his thumb presses inward, all the way to the knuckle. Felix's mouth drops open and Carver watches as his belly tightens in response. "Like that?"

"More. More of that. Unghhh..."  

Out, slow, dragging; then back in, shallow, teasing at the rim. It's a tight fit, and his saliva isn't going to be enough in the long run, but like this it's perfect. Carver bends and kisses one of his upturned knees and smiles to feel tentative fingers in his hair.

“You still haven’t undressed me,” he murmurs.

“Maybe I don’t want to.” Another kiss, and a slow inward press of his thumb that has Felix curling his toes against his back. “Maybe I like you like this, all messy and debauched.”

Felix gasps a little, turning pink—but he half-smiles awkwardly and says, “I’m sure you do, but it’s getting a bit… uncomfortable.”

“Oh! Right, of course.” He’s ashamed of how easy it is to turn him into a blushing, useless mess. He sits up on his heels to fumble with Felix’s smallclothes—Felix is still hard when he finally manages the job, incredibly, but it’s clear why he was so eager to be rid of them. “I’ll fetch you a cloth,” he mumbles, and flees to the washroom before he embarrasses himself any further.

At least he’s been blessed with his own private set of dwarven plumbing. A rune ensures hot water, and he returns with a warm, wet flannel for Felix to use. When he’s finished he drops it off the side of the bed and holds out his arms.

“Come here, handsome. I’m getting chilly over here.”

Carver comes, of course. He thinks Felix could ask anything of him at all and he would obey, helpless before those pretty pewter eyes and his easy smile. He wraps his arms around him and tucks his head down against his neck, too embarrassed to look him in the eye. “Sorry that I… ruined the mood.”

“Hush! You didn’t at all, silly man. You’ve only made me love you more, if possible.”

“You shouldn’t say that,” Carver whispers, though it hurts him like a kick in the chest to say it.

“And why not?”

He fingers the smooth plane of his flank, considering. “Dorian would say you’re it’s because you’re... _vulnerable to emotion_.”

“Hang what Dorian says,” Felix begins, but Carver shakes his head.

“Who else should know but him? Solas might have had answers, but he’s fucked off to Maker knows where, and it’s not as if _I_ have any clue.”

“And have you asked me _my_ opinion on the matter?” Felix asks, a little sharply. When Carver only stares at him, helpless, his mouth tightens with displeasure. “Do you not trust me, trust that I know my own mind?”

“I don’t know,” Carver says, honestly. “I _want_ to. But Dorian…”

“Stop quoting Dorian for once, and listen to your own intuition.” Felix drags slim fingers through his hair, prickling his scalp, and Carver shivers and buries his face in Felix’s chest like an ostrich in the sand of the Western Approach.  “He’s my dearest friend, but he doesn’t… know. What it was like.” Halting, he pieces the words together like an artisan putting together a patchwork quilt. “You were _there_ . You fought my demons single-handedly, you saw my cell, the cage I put myself in. _There_ I was clouded, confused, but here I’m finally in the light and everything makes sense. _You_ make sense.” He takes Carver’s face in his hands and draws him up, thumbs tracing the uncertainty from his features. “Do I make sense to you?”

“Sometimes I think you’re the _only_ thing that makes sense,” he admits. He crawls up Felix’s body and nestles in beside him, kissing his brow. “I’m sorry I upset you.”

“You didn’t upset me. And it’s… probably wise, to ask these things. You’re being conscientious. That’s a good thing.”

“Liar,” Carver says, half-teasing. He runs his palm up Felix’s silky thigh to grasp his hip and leans in, kissing him softly. Felix opens his mouth easily and slides their tongues together, hot and languid, and Carver grunt his approval. “Let me make it up to you, sweetheart.”

“Mmm. And how do you plan on accomplishing such a feat?”

“You tell me.” Another kiss, and he feels confident enough to reach between Felix’s legs and fondle his bollocks. “I am yours to command.”

Felix throws one leg over Carver’s, thigh going taut and toes curling against the sheets. “You may find yourself disappointed,” he admits, eyes half-shut against Carver’s wandering hands. “I’m still very— _oh Maker save me_ —still so sensitive…”

“So I see.” He rubs his thumb against the head of Felix’s cock and is rewarded with a small swell of fluid that is salty to taste when he lifts it to his tongue. Felix groans and grabs him by the hair again—he seems to love doing that, and Carver doesn’t mind at all—so Carver ducks down and kisses bright red marks all down Felix’s belly until he’s right at the perfect angle to suck his cock.

True to his word, Felix doesn’t take long. He spends in Carver’s mouth in only a minute or two, thinner and more bitter than Carver was expecting; still, he swallows like a gentleman and lets Felix spend on his cheek a few minutes after that.

Finally spent, wrung out and limp as a wet rag, Felix sprawls against the pillow and mumbles apologies that Carver kisses away. “It’s fine. You’re beautiful, I love seeing you like this,” he whispers, and groans when Felix grips his cock and tugs him to a messy, explosive finish. He makes a mess of his flat brown belly, but when he tries to move to fetch something for it, Felix tugs him back down and tells him _later._

They drift like this for a little while, until Carver gathers the wherewithal to clean them off again. When he settles back on the bed, he draws the covers up around them and tucks Felix in firmly, conscious of the cool Frostback air drifting through the open balcony doors.

“Are you alright?” he whispers when Felix barely stirs.

“Mmm. Fine. Sleepy.” He yawns and Carver lets him be, though he himself feels restless, like there’s some unfinished task he forgot to do. When the quiet knock comes on his door some time later, it’s almost a relief. He slips out of bed without disturbing Felix and dresses quickly, yesterday’s breeches and a fresh shirt, and goes down to see who it is.

It’s Cassandra, of course—in hindsight he should have predicted it. She’s still dressed in her ceremonial Seeker garb, and wearing her customary sour expression, though it fades a little as she takes in his disheveled appearance.

“Inquisitor. I apologize if I…”

“Don’t worry, Cass, you didn’t interrupt anything.” He steps out into the hall and lets the door half-close behind him, just in case the sound carries up to where Felix slumbers. “Look, I’m sorry I ducked out early from the party—”

“It’s all right,” she says quickly, before he can make any hollow excuses for his absence. “You were hardly missed, in truth, and those that did were easily placated with strong drink.” She smiles, a vague shadow of a thing. “I think you have more than earned the right to rest. I simply wanted to make sure that you had not fled Skyhold entirely, after the celebrations.”

Carver snorts. “I was tempted. But no, I’m still. I can’t in good conscience leave _now_ , just because the easy part’s over.”

Cassandra raises a dubious eyebrow at him. “Defeating Corypheus was the _easy part_?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Terrifyingly, I do.” She shakes her head wryly. “We are more alike than I care to admit, Inquisitor. Very well, I will not disturb you any further. Return to your spirit before you are missed.”

Carver snorts. “He’s all flesh, actually. I can vouch for _that_.”

“Please spare me the details.” But she’s smiling again, and he knows her romantic side has been swayed by Carver’s admittance. “Sleep well, Inquisitor. And do not rise before noon tomorrow if you can help it.”

“I don’t know if my body remembers what _sleep_ is,” he quips, saluting her as she turns to leave. “And Cass….”

“Yes, Carver?” She looks at him over her shoulder, hand propped easily on the hilt of her ceremonial sword. It’s the first time she’s referred to him by his given name, and it’s surprisingly humbling.

“Thanks. For everything.”

She nods once, understanding and acceptance all at once, and departs. Feeling less troubled than before, he returns to his bedchamber and to Felix, who is waiting for him heavy-eyed and smiling.

“You know what I said before?” he murmurs, stroking Felix’s cheek. “About… things you shouldn’t say?”

“Mmhmm.”

“I take it all back.”

Felix’s eyes flicker open. “What did Cassandra say to change your mind?”

“How did you…?”

“It had to be either her or Dorian. And if it was Dorian there probably would have been shouting, or you would have come back all tense and fuming instead of wonderfully… _languid_.”

Carver shakes his head, a little astounded. “You’re too bloody brilliant for your own good. Where you were you while I was running the Inquisition, running thither and yon like a headless chicken?”

Felix wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. “Making love to you from beyond the Veil.”

“ _Ugh_.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” He laughs at the expression on Carver’s face. “I’m sorry, my dear. I would have been here if I could. And I _will_ be here, from now on, if you’ll have me.”

“I would like that.” He squeezes him gently and Felix shivers, smiles, and buries himself a little deeper into the bedding. “I would like that very much.”


End file.
